Zipline: Adventure in space
Why would a guy over 60 take on one of the West’s most exciting zipline courses? The same reason, he says, that 10year-olds and 90-year-olds have.
“It just dawned on me one day how exhilarating it might be,” said Bob Simms, who — thanks to his radio show on KFBK — is one of Northern California’s best-known outdoorsmen. “I never thought I would do something like this. As I stepped up to the first platform, I realized I was scared to death.”
Simms was on vacation, traveling across the western U.S. to golf, fish and river raft, when the idea of trying a zipline course crossed his mind. As the days and miles passed, that idea kept popping up in his thoughts.
In Oregon, near Klamath Lake, he found himself signing in at Crater Lake Zipline.
Ziplines are cables affixed to two stations, in this case to trees with platforms about 100 feet in the air. Riders wear a harness that is connected with a shackle to a pulley-like wheel on the cable. Under supervision, riders will step off the platform and let gravity take them to the platform at the end of the run.
When done at high speed over the top of open spaces for long distances, ziplining can provide either a euphoric sensation of flying or primal fear.
In the West, Crater Lake Zipline is a crown jewel. It is the only zipline with a tree canopy tour route in a national forest in America. The route includes nine lines — two of which are more than a quarter-mile long — two sky bridges (which are similar to suspension bridges), two rappels and a “step-off platform” that results in a 55foot free fall with an auto-brake at the end. The course takes about three hours to complete.
Riders have to be at least 10 years old, their weight must be between 70 and 250 pounds, and participants must sign a waiver stating that they are in good physical health with no heart problems. It costs $110. It includes equipment, guides and a short ground school.
After his group was driven up to a forest hilltop for equipment checks and orientation, Simms was called to the platform.
“I immediately had reservations about this, just giving in to walking off the platform, stepping off into space,” Simms said. “It wasn’t something I had thought out. Then I looked at our group and saw several young women and their grandmother in her 70s, and I wanted to say, ‘Would you go first?’ Then I thought, ‘If they can do it, I can do it.’ ”
Simms got very quiet. Later he said that he considered some of the heart-pounding moments in his life: motorcycle racing on dirt tracks, whitewater rafting on the Upper Klamath River, flying (with me) in a small plane over the Ansel Adams Wilderness with no soft place below in a 75-mile radius, and the day on the trail when he was surprised by a coiled rattlesnake at point-blank range.
In a step of faith, he put his right foot into the open air and off he went.
This first run is rated easy. Using a leather pad on one hand on the cable overhead, Simms slowed his run and emerged on the landing platform at the other end, exultant.
“‘I made it,’ I said to myself,” Simms said. “I realized I could then start breathing again.”
Zipliners quickly learn about aerodynamics. That is, how you position yourself on a run affects your speed. To go fast, hold your legs out in front, or more horizontally. To slow down, let your legs hang down, or more vertically. If you allow your legs to sway out to the side, you will swing out; not a good idea.
The sky bridges can throw some off balance. “It feels like a combination of walking on a tightrope that feels like a water bed,” Simms said.
The grand finale is the “stepoff” — participants walk off a platform in a tree and plummet in a free fall. A harness rigged to a mechanism with an automatic brake stops you from hitting the ground.
“You have to trust the equipment and then step off into space,” Simms said.
You’re utterly out of control and some riders panic, but it is the only way down to the ground.
For those with PTSD, it’s a way to surrender and trust, and some might use this as a form of therapy. For others, it provides unmatched exhilaration.
“When it came to my turn, I didn’t want to take any time, you know, to look down and think about it, so I just stepped off,” Simms said.
The descent to the forest floor is over in a few seconds.
“As I dropped through the air, there was this rush, the fear of the unknown,” Simms said. “The first half is a free fall, then the brake kicks in. Suddenly, I was on the ground. I had done it.”
Back at the staging area, where he turned in his equipment, Simms reflected on what he had done, about how people say that this kind of thing is not for them.
“Do it and you’ll change your mind,” Simms said. “It was the most exhilarating thing I’ve ever done. Everybody walks away with a tremendous sense of accomplishment.”