After brunch we met with John and Diane (the friends we caravanned up here with) and went zip-lining. They bought a zip line package deal at a recent auction for the local day-care center, and invited us along.
Our guides were Jeremy and Billy – Billy, at 29, is the oldest member on the zip line team; Jeremy couldn’t be more than 22. During the winter he’s going to college to major in Physics, and during the summer he takes tourists on zip line and rock-climbing tours.
Our tour started with climbing up rough terrain to get to the ladders that would lead us to the zip lines. The ladders were a challenge all by themselves. The first one was a rope bridge with slats, but the slats were randomly placed, with some pretty big gaps. The second bridge was another rope bridge, with no slats – just the ropes! And the third bridge was a rope bridge with a 2x4 in the middle of it, like a balance beam.
Once we got across the bridges we hooked up to the first “baby” zip line. It’s a short trip, probably just to get people used to the feeling. They have a good system – our harnesses had 2 lanyards so when we were on the platform we were hooked up to the safety line with one lanyard while they were hooking us up to the zip line with the other. After the baby zip, we went on to the next five zips. The recommended take-off process is to either sit down and raise your feet (if the take-off platform is really small) or to lean forward and walk off the edge. I was not able to walk off the edge – I really wanted too, but couldn’t make my feet do it. One time I just gave up and asked Billy to push me off. But everyone else could do it just fine. It was such a great feeling – zipping down the line – it felt like we were in free-fall. It was absolutely amazing - one of the best experiences we've every had! It was so much fun that we did the last 3 zip lines twice! The first 2 pics are me (Jackie) and the next two are of Randy:
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