Just Zippin' Along

I wanted to do something really cool for my birthday (May 26th, for those playing along at home) so Theo and I headed up to Whistler to do a Ziptrek tour. It did not disappoint.

For those of you who are wondering what the heck Ziptrek is, it involves a series of zip lines that cross back and forth over Fitzsimmons creek in Whistler - about 150 feet in the air. Now I'm not normally a real adventure activity kind of gal but when I saw them do a zipline on Amazing Race, instead of hyperventilating like I do when they bungy jump and walk in shark tanks, I thought to myself, that sounds pretty cool.

So my sweetie and I made reservations and headed to Whistler for the day. After getting over the shock that we could park all day for free (wha??) we headed into the Village to poke around before our appointment time. Once it was time we got packed into a van with 4 other people and we headed up the mountains to the Ziptrek base where we stored our gear and got all harnessed in. I was pretty damn nervous at this point. My knees were shaking, my hands were shaking and I was seriously wondering what the hell I was thinking. Alas, it was time to head to the training run.

Having confessed both my nervousness and my birthday celebration to my fellow Ziptrekkers, they volunteered me to go first on the demo line so I got to find out what it was all about right away. I felt pretty panicky standing up on the (pretty low) platform but just kept following instructions until I was zipping along to the other side. It wasn't so bad after all. I really would have liked to have tried that line several more times just to feel more comfortable but the guides insisted I'd much rather be doing the big ones. I wasn't convinced.

After a short walk on increasingly wobbly knees we headed off to the first real platform and a medium line that followed a pretty narrow path through the trees to the other side of the creek. Cursing my madness I stepped up second in line for a zip across. Okay, it wasn't so bad. Maybe even a bit fun. I turned around backwards mid way through because of the wind but arrived safely on the other side. It was then I got a look at the really long ones coming up.

If there had been a way to get back across the creek without having to zip, I think I would have bailed at this point. Luckily my pride and complete aversion to ever making a scene kept me from totally losing it. Just steps away from full-blown panic, I let myself get clipped on and convinced myself that I was just sitting in my harness and it was no big deal. And really, it wasn't. It was sitting in my harness doing 70kph over a deep ravine but it was still just sitting. I got a bit of whiplash from the braking system but I was too thrilled that it worked to care too much.

The next one was another biggie but I had calmed down quite considerably. We were supposed to put our arms out in a starfish (to slow ourselves down) but I could only bring myself to let one hand off the rope even though I knew my holding on had nothing to do with anything except my comfort. For the final, short run we were encouraged to go off backwards, turn upside down and do goofy freestyle movements. As you might have guessed, I didn't do any of the above but Theo did and I was quite proud. For me, making it through at all was plenty brave. I didn't need to be upside down to prove it.

So despite all my panic and many moments of self-doubt, I actually had a great time, highly recommend it, and would totally do it again.