My Zip Lining Day

It was an absolutly beautiful day here in Whistler - nice temperatures and not a cloud in the sky. Cooler than Vancouver but still great. I arrived shortly after noon at the check-in place, paid my fee, then waited with some others for our adventure to start. Our tour guides, both pleasant young guys from England, outfitted us in our harnesses and we set off through the village to the short gondola ride up Blackcomb. We then got into a snowcat pictured here for a further ride up the mountain.

 

They  have a series of  4 lines running between the mountains varying in length between 400' and 700' and along one of 2200'. We each (there were 8 of us in our group plus the 2 guides) take turns going  across on a line with a guide at the receiving end applying the brakes as you come in. I was a bit apprehensive the first ride but once you got the hang of it that was replaced by terror. Kidding- you got used to it. Here are some pix from others on the lines.

 

The views are stunning. The guides also mix in little lectures about the local ecology as it is also called an ecotrek. Very interesting as this was taking lace in a rain forest.

 

One of the young guests had an extra thrill. When she came into the landing zone she didn't make it far enough and went about a third of the way back out and just hung there over the river between the two mountains. The guide at the receiving end grabbed a rope and clamp and slid out to attach the rope to her. He then hand over hand pulled himself back then hauled her in via the rope. She took it all in good humour. Funnily enough it also happened later on to her boyfriend. This next picture shows the line crossing the river.

 

The zip lines start and end up in the trees and they have elaborate structures built there, including walkways between the  end of one line and the start of the next one.

Here I'm pictured in all my gear at one of the start stations. Magnificent views...

I tried to video some of my rides but a couple of them didn't turn out well. The best one came with a later ride across the 2200' span shown above. That was a great ride but I did it mostly backwards - don't know why... It goes near the Whistler Sliding Centre and crosses the river 5 times. My video is about 50 seconds long and is too big too include here so you'll just have to imagine it or somehow view it on my computer.Apparently somebody in another group using a GPS unit recorded their maximum speed at about 47 km/hr.

 

Our last ride took us down the mountain to the village which you can see in the background.The guides had told us to think about doing some freestyle moves or doing the ride upside down. I was pretty lame about it and just waved my arms and legs about. But several people  did do the ride inverted. Here's a picture of one of them.

He did this all the way down going along side skiers finishing their runs on the mountain. All in all a very cool adventure.

When we got back this evening our young Norwegian roomie had two announcements for us. He will no longer have to sleep on the pullout couch and live out of his suitcase as they gave him his own room. His other announcement was to tell us he has been invited to a reception here in Whistler on Wednesday with the King and Queen of Norway. Good week for Christain and Norwegian athletes,many of whom he knows, as Norway has pulled ahead of Canada by 4 medals . I tell him to wait until the real sports start to give medals instead of the endless variations of cross country ski medals that Norway seems to win. We have a toonie each riding on the total count.

Tomorrow I'm back at the athlete village for a late shift and we'll see how busy that is. I keep hoping they'll shift me elsewhere for this shift and Wednesday but so far no luck.