Ziplining

Ever been? Every year Colin's optical engineering work group gets to take the afternoon off and do a group outing. The activities change from year to year, but are usually pretty mellow things like going to a Fishercats or Red Sox game. Well, this year, someone in their group(DEB!), had the bright idea that they should go ziplining because it was on her bucket list. I just want to go on record right now saying that I don't want to do anything else on Deb's bucket list! :)

Anyway, when Colin first told me about this I thought it might be kind of fun. Stupid of me, I know! The night before the big outing, Colin brings home the liability release form that you have to sign before you can go. That's when the nerves started to kick in a little. The fact that I was suppose to sign this paper that would hold the place harmless if they failed to make sure I was buckled properly to the wire that I would be "zipping" down (with nothing underneath to catch me if I fell), somehow just didn't sit well with me. Despite my misgivings, I signed the paper.

We met up for lunch beforehand which was a bad idea looking back on it because my stomach wasn't feeling so great after we were done! A storm was predicted to be coming through, and secretly I hoped that it would show up before we went and that we wouldn't be able to do the ziplining because of the weather. No such luck.

They have you do a little practice run first, only 10 feet or so off the ground, so you get the idea of what you will be doing. Well that didn't seem so bad- but then again, it wouldn't have killed you to fall from that height! Here we are after our practice run, still optimistic about the adventure.

After our practice run, it was on to the real deal. The first line wasn't too bad. Not too high up and not very long in length. "I can do this", I thought. For the second line, we had to go up on a ski lift to get to the top of the mountain. I don't ski and had never been on a ski lift, but I always thought they looked like fun. Guess what? They aren't! I felt like I was going to fall out of that thing the whole way up. I hated it! I was riding with Colin and the 21 yr old summer intern Sam. Sam was a skier so he knew to pull down the overhead bar so I would at least have something to hold onto. Thanks Sam!

I should tell you that Colin and I have always made fun of the "hills" in New Hampshire that the locals call mountains. We are from the west coast where there are actually real mountains. I won't be making fun of the New Hampshire hills anymore though because when you are standing at the top of one and your only way down is to be hooked to a wire with nothing underneath to catch you if you fall while you go "zipping" at speeds of up to 40 mph to the other side, you feel like you are at the top of Everest!

There were 5 lines total I think, and on the worst one you had to climb a spiral staircase to get on a tower (because at 2200 feet we weren't high enough up already)! You couldn't see where this line ended it was that long. There are 2 lines side by side, so 2 people go at a time, one on each line. Colin was always the person on the other line when I went. Did I mention that the people working there all looked to be about 17 or 18 years old and were just there for a summer job? This is who I'm trusting to make sure I am buckled in properly?? Definitely crazy! Anyway, after they get you hooked up to the line, they tell you to "go". Well I was always holding on to the handle for dear life and if you push the handle all the way down, that is what makes you go. So on this super scary line, I accidentally start going before she says "go", and the last thing I hear this 17 yr old say as I start zipping down is "uh oh". What do you mean "uh oh"? NOT what you want to hear when you are a couple thousand feet in the air with nothing underneath you but trees and the hard ground!

Since I'm writing this blog post, I obviously lived to tell about it. There were times I wondered if I was going to though! I'm happy to say that all 12 of us escaped without injury. Here is a picture of us after we finished the course. You can see by my face that I'm a little shocked and just really grateful to have my feet on the ground again!

Remember that storm I was telling you about? Well, just as the last of our group finished the zipline course, they shut it down because the storm was rolling through. If only we had been just a couple hours later...