The Minnesota Zoo Opens the Treetop Trail

by Justin R. Wolf, Enter

Published August 17, 2023

Featuring Ross Altheimer, PLA, ASLA, FAAR

The longest elevated pedestrian loop in the world is the culmination of a decade-long effort to transform the zoo’s shuttered monorail system.

On July 28, World Nature Conservation Day, the Minnesota Zoo in Apple Valley unveiled a one-of-a-kind project that, depending on your point of view, had been either 10 years or several decades in the making. The Treetop Trail, designed by Snow Kreilich Architects and TEN x TEN, is a 1.25-mile, elevated pedestrian walkway that winds and stretches around the zoo’s Northern Trail section, taking visitors on a circuitous journey through the property’s varied landscapes, vistas, and canopies. Returning guests will recognize the structure: The trail is an adaptive reuse of Skytrail, the zoo’s monorail system, which was decommissioned in 2013 and had been plagued with financial and maintenance woes throughout its 34 years of operation…

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