MegaZip at WildSide Park

WildSide Park, perched on the ridgeline above Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, contains the MegaZip, a 5,771-foot zipline that holds the distinction of being the longest in the United States, reaching speeds up to 55 miles per hour over a descent that delivers panoramic views of downtown Pigeon Forge, the Sevier County valley, and the forested ridgelines of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park’s eastern approaches. The park operates for June 2026, with the MegaZip running daily 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., alongside UTV guided tours on off-road mountain terrain, mountain biking trails across multiple difficulty levels, and e-bike expedition routes covering the park’s extensive backcountry trail system. The park is operated by the Pigeon Forge adventure recreation sector and offers a distinctly different physical experience from the Smokies’ standard hiking and waterfall circuit.

The MegaZip’s operating parameters include minimum weight and age requirements that the park communicates through its booking portal; confirm current specifications before purchasing tickets for younger or lighter participants. The experience itself takes approximately two to three minutes end to end at full operational speed, which sounds brief until you are 200 feet above a Tennessee ridgeline moving at highway speed with a mountain panorama in every direction. The return shuttle from the landing zone to the launch platform is included with the ticket. Combination packages pairing the MegaZip with the UTV tours or e-bike expeditions are available at discounted rates and extend the park visit into a full half-day or full-day excursion rather than a single-attraction stop.

WildSide’s Setting and the Smokies Context

WildSide Park’s ridgeline position above Pigeon Forge gives the MegaZip and the UTV trails a spatial relationship with the surrounding landscape that the valley floor attractions in Pigeon Forge’s commercial corridor cannot match. The park’s terrain connects culturally and geologically to the national park whose boundary lies just minutes south, and the transition from WildSide’s groomed adventure infrastructure to the national park’s unmanaged wilderness is one of the more abrupt boundary experiences in the American outdoor recreation landscape. Great Smoky Mountains National Park receives more annual visitors than any other national park in the system, and the park’s Alum Cave Trail, accessible from the Newfound Gap Road 20 miles south of Pigeon Forge, provides one of the Smokies’ most geology-rich hiking experiences, climbing through hollowed-out bluffs and past alum seeps to an exposed ridgeline with views into both the Tennessee and North Carolina drainages.

Good to Know
Pigeon Forge’s summer crowds peak from late June through August, and the Parkway corridor along US-441 can develop significant traffic congestion during peak summer afternoons. WildSide Park’s morning session, arriving before 10 a.m., typically avoids the mid-morning crowd buildup and benefits from cooler ridge temperatures before the Tennessee valley heat rises through the day.

Where to Stay

Pigeon Forge’s lodging ranges from large resort hotels on the Parkway to cabin rentals in the surrounding Sevier County mountain hollows. For vacation rentals near Pigeon Forge and the Great Smoky Mountains corridor, look on Lake.com for properties that combine mountain access with proximity to WildSide Park and the national park entrance on the Newfound Gap Road.