PORT ANGELES — It has been more than a year since Dan Williams received a permit to build a zip line course in the hills south of Port Angeles.
The course hasn’t been built. And now the co-owner of Green Planet Inc. is changing gears and dreaming bigger.
Williams, 54, said he plans to build two zip line courses on the West End before breaking ground near Port Angeles.
The courses, shown to be popular around the world, would zip people up and down mountain sides on overhead cables, he said.
Williams, a Port Angeles resident, said he is in talks with two timber companies, which he declined to identify, to build the courses between Lake Crescent and Forks.
He said he is aiming to strike a deal with the companies by July and have the parks running by April 15.
In the meantime, he plans to pitch a more extravagant idea to people in Port Angeles: an air tram, otherwise known as a gondola.
The air tram would connect the zip line course he eventually wants to build near Little River Road with downtown.
Williams said he plans to start pitching the idea to business organizations this summer.
Having a zip line course, which Williams claimed would be the largest in the world, tied to an air tram would put Port Angeles on the map for tourism and make it a frequent cruise ship stop, he said.
“It’s kind of pie in the sky. It’s kind of big thinking,” Williams acknowledged.
“We’d better hit a few home runs over the fence, or we’re going to lose the game,” he added, referring to the local economy.
The company, Williams said, would donate revenue to go toward environmental restoration work on the North Olympic Peninsula.
Williams said he has the investors to build the $34.1 million tram; he wouldn’t identify his investors.
He said he is now looking for community support.
But the air tram would go over homes, an aspect he doesn’t shy away from.
Williams said it remains to be seen if Port Angeles residents would support trams going up to 300 feet over their neighborhoods but suggested they have more to lose by passing up on an opportunity to build such an attraction.
“We can’t be relying on cutting down forests and fishing,” he said.
“There’s always going to be naysayers, but we got to think of a bigger future for ourselves.”
When asked what he would tell someone opposed to a tram going overhead, Williams responded:
“I’d rather have that going over my house than a Chinese bomber or ballistic missile and them saying, ‘Give me my money back.’
“Because we owe trillions of dollars to China,” he added, when asked to elaborate. “This is a way to make our own revenue, our own money here, and create a world-class attraction.”
Williams said he plans to start making presentations on the idea this year to see how much support and opposition would exist.
When it comes to local governments, it seems he has the support he needs.
City Manager Kent Myers and Clallam County Administrator Jim Jones said they both have spoken with Williams about the air tram idea.
They said they are in favor of it but acknowledged it would take a lot of planning and permitting.
“I could tell you it’s worked in other communities about the same size of Port Angeles,” Myers said. “It could work here.”
He said it would be “hard to say” how residents would respond.
“It would be the kind of thing people would come and stay here a couple of days to do,” Jones said.
“We wouldn’t just be on the way to something anymore.”
Linda Rotmark, Clallam County Economic Development Council executive director, declined to comment on the proposal because she hadn’t seen a business plan.
Williams said the West End locations would together be 640 acres in size and cost $1.2 million to build.
The Port Angeles location would cost $1.8 million on 40 acres of land owned by the state Department of Natural Resources.
In March 2010, Clallam County commissioners, after hearing an appeal of a permit granted to Williams in December 2009, upheld a conditional land-use permit for a course with seven gravity zip lines ranging in length from 380 feet to 1,586 feet in the hills near Little River Road.
The permit was granted with 22 conditions, including a one-way loop for Green Planet passenger vans that were envisioned to take customers to the site from downtown Port Angeles.
Williams said he is moving ahead on the West End locations first because they would be easier and cheaper to start.
The Port Angeles location, he said, needs a lot more work and investment, including road improvements and dealing with vandalism and poaching.
Negotiating a lease with DNR for the site on Little River Road also would take longer, Williams added.
“I can’t drop $1.8 million when we have garbage along the roads out there and shrinking time lines,” he said.
Williams said he would build a zip line course outside Port Angeles without the tram.
He also wants to build zip line parks outside Yosemite National Park and the Samoan Islands, but Williams said he wants to start in Port Angeles first.
“I am committed to Port Angeles until the end,” he said.
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Reporter Tom Callis can be reached at 360-417-3532 or at tom.callis@peninsuladailynews.com.