Hanging by a thread...

This past weekend, I met up with Rob in Whistler. We'd been planning on meeting up anyways, and Rob had connected on a cool idea for a weekend away: a Zipline Tour. Basically, this company has set up several steel cables between the two mountains of Blackcomb and Whistler. They set you up with a harness and pulley, and in true playground fashion, you zip between the two mountains on the wire! Absolutely awesome! You are so high up in the trees that you often cannot see the ground. It was literally like walking into the Ewok Village from Star Wars. I could have sworn I saw Han Solo kicking around somewhere.

Anyways, it's kinda hard to describe, so I've got some pictures to explain how it works.

This is the height we're talking about. You can see the lines that we were flying across between the two mountains. It may look short from the photo, but we're talking about a minimum of 1100 feet of distance for each line.


These are the stairs of the Ewok Village that you walk off of to start the zipline tour. Just a drop off into nowhere. You can see the ground, but really, from head on, you are looking at going down a mountain cliff. Just you and the harness. Walk off, and hope for the best.

So this is a picture of one of the huts in the trees. There were several of these all over the place, with the zip lines criss crossing between the mountains. Now you can see the Ewok resemblance. This was one of the more interesting lines, as it was the freestyle line, and we were able to go upside down on it without fear of getting stuck in the middle. (Hopefully, there will be video of that stuff when Rob is done editing it)


Here's a pic of Rob and I before one of our trips over one of the lines. Probably 3 or 4 zips in. At this point you're feeling confident about the harness and that sort of stuff, so we were having a great time, letting go of the line, starfishing at several hundred feet in the air, that sort of stuff.

Finally, this is a pic of me breaking into one of the treehouses. I'm in the half cannonball position so that I can slow down and not kill either myself or the tour guide waiting at the top of the line. You can see the brake mechanism at the top of my line, which slows me down into the treehouse. I think this was one of the longer lines, and I was flying across at one hell of a pace.

Anyways, that is basically the trip. I would certainly do it again. There is another trip with lines that are twice as long as the ones that we went on, so it would be even better, I'm sure! They've also got whitewater rafting and freestyle mountain biking up there during the summer. One busy little ski hill, that's for sure!