Meredith was able to come in town with me and go, because who else would I get to be my adventurous partner in crime? I can always count on Meredith to cross over to the crazy side with me. Our zip time was 11:30 and we arrived a bit early. We took the time to sign our waivers accepting the fact that we're responsible...yadda yadda yadda. I've signed enough of these forms that I really don't read them anymore. They just try to scare the daylights out of you anyways.
The place was packed. I couldn't believe how many people were going ziplining. According to some of the workers they said it was one of the busiest days they've had since opening in May. This is why I recommend reservations if anyone ever goes. Come to find out they can take up to 12 people at a time and they try to fill those 12 spots as much as possible. We ended up going with a couple and then a group of 7 people including a young boy and a grandma who was in her 60s. She was terrified. Surprisingly, she ended up doing really well. Way to go grandma.
The first order of business was to get our equipment which included a butt harness, the pulley system for the cables, helmet and gloves. We also purchased carabiner water bottles to take some gatorade with us. The butt harness wasn't too bad, the guy tightening mine didn't cut off the circulation too badly. It was actually more comfortable than the sky diving harnesses I've worn. Meredith's was a bit tight and I think it might have started cutting off her circulation at one point. Our pulleys were hooked onto our harnesses along with our full bottles. I quickly realized that maybe the water bottle was a bad idea considering how difficult it was to try to walk while swinging that thing between my legs...on top of the pulleys and carabiners already dangling there. That must have been entertaining for people to watch us walk.
Rockin' the butt harness. (Don't stare too long or you might be blinded by my legs.)
We're cute in our geeky-lookin' gear.
Now that we were all geared up, it was time to head to the practice site where the two guides explained how to actually zipline. There's a bit more to it than just flying balls to the wall down a rope. And this is where Meredith and I started to rethink this idea. But, in hindsight, the little practice area that was 4 feet off the ground was nothing like the actual zipline. And it was much more difficult.
The first rule is to cross your ankles and keep your feet outstretched in front of you (which makes you lean back a bit). That's supposed to help you go faster. Noted. Next, your non-dominant hand goes at the top of your strap underneath where the pulleys are attached to the rope. (You can use this hand to spin you back around if you get twisted. I did not find that this worked at all.) Your dominant hand goes at the bottom of the strap and can be removed to help you brake. So far everything seemed pretty easy. Then they explained braking. You basically slow yourself down by adding friction to the line with the palm of your hand. Yep, while you're flying 50 mph down this metal cable, you're supposed to use your HAND to slow you down. Good thing we had those leather gloves. Braking involves applying pressure down on the cable to slow you down. The harder the pressure, the more you slow down. The important thing to remember, which I totally blanked on during the first zip, was that you're supposed to brake behind you. Essentially whatever direction you came from. That's easy enough to remember if you don't get twisted around. When you twist and end up going backwards, your brain doesn't compute fast enough and you put your hand in front of the pulley system. This is a big no-no unless you enjoy getting your hand pinched in between a large metal cable and steel pulley system.
Then, the guides explained to us about the emergency brake and self-rescue. The e-brake is what they do if you're coming in too fast to the end tower and you haven't braked or if you have braked, but you suck at it. Rather than you ending up splattering yourself on the pole, they throw a rope out 6 or so feet that literally will stop you in tracks. The rope is attached to the metal cable and when your pulley hits it, you don't go anywhere, except into a state of whiplash I presume. I was kind of paranoid about this because I was not looking forward to the whiplash that was sure to occur. The self-rescue seemed "easy" enough, but I did not want to have to do it. If you dangle your feet or twist too much during a zip, you can lose momentum and not quite make it to the end. If this happens you have to haul your ass to the end going backward hand over hand on the cable. While practicing on the ground, this was more difficult than it sounds. I was really hoping that I wouldn't have to do it.
Once all eleven of us had tried out braking and self-rescuing on the practice line (I did the braking just fine, but then again I was only going about .0125 mph.), we headed up to the first tower. Tim, one of our guides, informed us that there were 71 stairs to the top. One of the ladies in our group proceeded to count Every. Damn. Step. as we went up. Seriously? Not necessary lady. By the time we got to the top, I'll admit, my nerves were running rampant. The height didn't bother me at all. In fact, zipping over the Meramec River didn't really phase me. I was honestly more freaked out about keeping my form and remembering to brake, but not braking too much that I have to self-rescue, but braking enough that I don't plow into the tower, but still enjoy what I'm doing, and.....you get the idea.
Tower #1, all 71 stairs of it. This is where we left from.
Some random person leaving the first tower.
Another random person zipping over the parking lot.
Carlos, our other guide, took off first so he could be at the end tower to grab us, stop us or e-brake us if necessary. Both boys looked fresh out of high school and today was their first day working together. By the end of the course, I could tell that they didn't really like working together. It got a little more awkward as the day went on. Once Carlos was set at his end, Tim started sending us one by one to the other side. Apparently all the radios were dead, so they had to yell at each other to see if it was safe to send the next person. Yep, I said yell. Across thousands of feet and a river. Brilliant, guys, just brilliant. You could just barely make out the other tower, so it was hard to be able to see. We did all manage to make it across each time without rearending the person before us.
You can't even see the other tower across the river.
This is the tower with my camera zoomed in as far as it would go.
Time was ticking slowly as Meredith and I waited our turns. We were back in the corner, so we figured we would be last. Nope, Tim had other ideas and he randomly snatched Mere from the back and sent her on her way. From what I could tell, she did really well. She kept her form and I don't think she twisted at all. She also made it to the end safely without having to pull herself across. Then, it was my turn. Tim hooked up the two pulleys to each of the two cables, and attached the cord to me and I was all set to go. I "sat down" in the harness, and "legs up, feet crossed" and away I went.
Mere getting hooked up.
Look at her go! Sorry I had to cut it short, but Tim was beckoning me to get strapped in.
I will warn you before you watch this that I wasn't actually holding onto my camera. It's just on a neck strap, so every time I moved, it moved. I couldn't hold it and brake at the same time, so this is the best footage I could get! Take some Dramamine first if you're prone to seasickness.
It. Was. Awesome. It wasn't quite as fast as I was expecting, but it was so freakin' fun. Which is why I got totally lost in what I was doing and realized almost too late that I was supposed to brake. I ended up getting twisted, so I was coming in backwards. I had no idea how far away I was at all and suddenly I heard "BRAKE!" and I was able to brake myself to keep from plowing into Carlos. In my haste, I also did the braking on the wrong side of the cable, so that my hand was in front of the pulley. Big no-no. Fortunately, I didn't pinch my hand or break anything, so I was lucky. And I was so ready for the next zip.
I would have to say that the crappiest part of the entire day was the waiting. The entire course took around an hour and a half and I was probably waiting for an hour and fifteen minutes of it. You had to wait for each person to get across and get unhooked before the next person could go. So I was either waiting to zip or waiting for everyone else to finishing zipping. It was kind of a pain in the rear. One of the reasons Tim didn't like Carlos is because he was taking forever to unclip us. He was very chatty and I think that slowed him down a bit. But, he was just trying to engage us into having a good time.
After we all landed at the second tower, we had to walk up a sky bridge to get to the next tower. This was harder than it looks. It's a wobbly wooden bridge with an incredibly steep incline and they ask you not to run up it. What the crap? I got close to the top of this first one and I was losing momentum and about rolled back down it. It took all the muscles in my calves to make it up. Wow, that made me feel like a huge wimp. Now we were at Tower 3 and had the shortest and fastest zip ahead of us. According to the sign, we could get up to 50+ mph on this one. Sweet! That one was super fun and I managed to stay facing forward the entire time. I barely had to brake any (and I braked properly this time), so I came in perfectly and had a 9.7 landing.
The wooden bridge. See? It's a bit steep.
It was incredibly wobbly and difficult to walk up!
Like a glove! :)
Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!
We had to trek across another sky bridge and this time Carlos made us touch some dead tree limb hanging across part of it. Why? I have no idea. But, he wasn't going to let us on the platform if we didn't touch the stupid vine of life. Whatever dude. You have issues. Tim just rolled his eyes. The third zip from here I got to go first. Tim told me I probably wouldn't have to brake at all. I ended up getting twisted from almost the beginning and went backward for most of it. I ended up coming into the tower butt first. When Carlos unhooked me he asked if Tim sent me backwards. I said no, I did that all on my own. I'm super cool like that.
Me. Being Awesome.
See the wooden support post in the middle of the picture? And just to the left of it is a vine crossing the bridge straight up and down? Yeah, that's the vine of life. Exciting, right?
Ahhh, rope bridge!
Again, more waiting, so I took a drink break and tackled trying to get my carabiner loose to be able to drink my Gatorade which had grown quite warm at this point. This was the first time I went before Meredith, so I was able to video her coming in to land. She was pretty good. She managed to keep herself straight most of the time and not twist at all and she landed so easily on the platform. She's such a rockstar.
Mere's Landing. Such a pro. :) And to think she was nervous! lol
Finally, one more sky bridge (finally) and we had to trek up more stairs to get to the final zip. This was the highest tower and would also be the longest zip. We were to head back across the river. When we first arrived, the parking lot is right under the line and we saw lots of people having to self-rescue. Tim said that not many people make it all the way across without having to help themselves a little. Fan-freakin'-tastic. I was enjoying the ziplining at this point, but I was really ready to be done. I was tired and hot and tired of the drama playing out between our two guides.
Last bridge to the final zip tower. What you can't see is the extended height that isn't visible through the trees. We had many more stairs to climb to get to this highest tower.
That's the view from the tower. You definitely can't even see the final tower we landed at. The bottom of the picture is the river.
A view of the ground from where we were.
On top of the world. Or at least the top of the Caveman world.
Tim really didn't want his picture taken, so he decided to pout! Those young whipper-snappers are so silly.
According to them, the last tower was called Ja-Oo-Oo, which in some Indian dialect means Caveman. Sure it does. So, they told each one of us we had to yell it while zipping. I attempted my best Captain Caveman version. Since they didn't recommend braking at all on this zip to keep up our momentum, I got much better footage than the previous three zips. I still ended up getting twisted around though. Dangit. And I almost made it all the way to the end. I only had to pull myself a few feet to get to the platform. They had a guy taking photos of us as we came across (to purchase of course). When I went to look at mine, I looked stupid because I had my camera in my hand the whole time. Needless to say I didn't buy any pictures.
The final zip!
We finally headed back down the last tower and returned all of our gear and harnesses. My butt was very happy to be out of that tight thing. My back was a little sore at the end from leaning back in the harness as I zipped, but it wasn't too bad.
All in all, it was a really great experience, and I'm glad I was finally able to go. Now, I really want to go on a much bigger course. AND have fewer people to go with so I don't have to wait so damn long. Thanks to Meredith for braving the Caveman Zipline with me! :)
