Richard Stewart compares zooming down his favorite Mica Moon zip line to a recurring dream he had as a child. 

“As long as I kept my arms out, I could fly like Peter Pan,” says Stewart of the dream. 

He adds, however, “On the shorter and more intimate canopy zips, I would describe that completely different … I’d describe it as one of those nature walks, where you kind of take it in and think, ‘Wow, this is so beautiful,’ but you’re seeing the forest from a different perspective because you’re in the trees instead of in the forest looking up.”

Stewart is the president of Liberty Lake-based Epiphany Applied Concepts Inc., which does business as Mica Moon. The zip lining business occupies 500 square feet of office space at 23403 E. Mission, in Liberty Lake, but Stewart aptly points out that it more accurately occupies 294 acres across the lush Mica Peak mountain, located south of Liberty Lake near the Washington-Idaho border.

Established in 2011, Epiphany spent three years prepping the business and opened to the public finally as Mica Moon in 2014. The seasonal adventure company is open April 1 to Oct. 31, certified through the Association for Challenge Court Technology (ACCT), and has seen an 87 percent jump in revenue so far this year compared with 2015, though that changes weekly, says Stewart. Anticipated total revenue for 2016 is between $350,000 and $400,000, he says. The company was open only half a season in 2015 and brought in revenue of $250,000, he says.

Mica Moon employs 16 people and is a tour-based business, with each zip lining tour lasting about three hours. Nine Mile Falls-based Adventure Dynamics and Spokane-based Wonderland Family Fun Center also provide zip lining activities in the Spokane area. Stewart says other companies that offer zip lining are located in Wallace, Idaho; George, Wash.; San Juan Islands, Wash.; Leavenworth, Wash.; and Portland, Ore.

A standard tour costs $96, says Stewart. Military, student, youth, senior, and group discounts are offered, though there’s no compounding of discounts, he says.

Although weather deters the business from working on the off-season, weather has had little effect on the company’s in-season operations so far, says Stewart. The company zips rain or shine, and it only suspends operations for high winds and lighting, he says. High winds aren’t based on a particular wind speed, but on how a potential gust of wind could affect tree branches in the zip line corridors, he says. As of June 21, the company hadn’t had to close down yet this season, but it has suspended operations twice due to distant thunder and lightning. 

“In both cases, the storm blew over,” he says. “It was sunny and beautiful, and we went back to zipping.”

Opening a business like Mica Moon requires a substantial cash outlay, even though its indoor facility needs are comparatively small. Stewart says he’s spent “tens of thousands of dollars” in land-use costs, permits, an environmental impact survey, building roads for trails, “and after you get all of your infrastructure road-wise so you can actually get where you want to be, then you have the expense of design and engineering and construction of the platforms, and stringing, in our case, cables across canyons, and then, of course, you have to put in emergency grasps and (helicopter) landing zones.”

Mica Moon occupies private land, which the company leases, he says.

The tour goes like this: Zip liners start out in Mica Moon’s Liberty Lake office. During the office visit, guests are weighed, sign a photo release and liability waiver form, and are briefed on certain safety aspects of the tour.  Guests load into a van with the Mica Moon logo emblazoned on the side and caravan up to Mica Peak, while one of the two tour guides provides some history of the area.

Some of the facts that guests learn include that moonshine camps dotted Mica Peak during the Prohibition era, that wild parties that took place on Liberty Lake, and that Spokanites would frequent a handful of speakeasies when law enforcement authorities turned their heads, Stewart says. 

They also learn about mica, the shiny silicate mineral embedded in the mountain that give it its name.

At the drop-off, guests transfer from vans to Yamaha Viking 6s, utility vehicles that trek through Mica Moon’s trails. Guests are carted up to a harness station, where they gear up for their zip lines. 

Stewart says eight zip lines string across the land: two orientation zips, four canopy tour zips in the middle, and then two canyon crossings, known as The Point of No Return and White Lightning, respectively. The canyon crossings are what make Mica Moon famous, he says.

Stewart’s favorite zip line is the 1,500-foot-long The Point of No Return. “The only real way to get back is to zip back, that’s why we call it The Point of No Return, because once you make that commitment, you have to zip back. You’re stuck.”

The name White Lighting is a reference to both the moonshiners of old and also the fact it’s the fastest zip line at Mica Peak, reaching speeds of 50 miles per hour, he says.

Mica Moon provides more services than individual zip lining, though, he says. Family reunions, birthday parties, anniversaries, and even two wedding proposals have taken place at Mica Moon. 

“In the future, we are looked at offering twilight zips, maybe close to Halloween we’ll have zombie zips,” he says. “If we can get things put together, we’re going to open an aerial trekking park. That’s the next natural expansion. An aerial trekking park is kind of like a McDonald’s Playland for adults in the trees.”

For first-time zip liners, Stewart recommends reading user reviews extensively, see how fun the course is, make sure the course is ACCT approved, and make sure the weather looks like something the guest would want to zip line in.

Stewart earned a degree in communications from Brigham Young University. He worked as an electrical contractor for a number of years, and he most recently worked as a data center engineer for TierPoint LLC here before opening Mica Moon.

That changed when his health failed, he says. Now 55, Stewart has been battling cancer since he was 38. During his most recent round of chemotherapy, he made a deal within himself, he says. “I got cancer, and so I decided to make some changes and do some things I’ve always wanted to do, so I quit my position at TierPoint as a data center engineer, and (my wife and I) opened up Mica Moon,” he says.