The Zip Line

The afternoon was full of ropes work. After a presentation on safety, we started on the ZIP LINE. This was a brand new experience for me (as most of what we did there was). It entails standing on the edge of a cliff, strapping your harness onto a rope by two carabiners and jumping off the cliff. At first it feels like a free fall until the rope catches and then it's fun to fly across to the ground on the other side. The falling part is definitely the worst. I was terrified. Dave said I looked like I was trying to stall because I very slowly and very deliberately put my carabiners on, one by one. Then I climbed over to the edge and looked up at him and said "I'm really scared". He was very reassuring, of course, and so was the guy working the ropes. Well I finally told myself there was no choice and decided to just do it so I just fell backwards like I was told. And I hit the cliff. Really hard. On my bum. I later heard that the piece of rock I knocked loose weighed more than I did. Great-nice work Leisha! So after that I floated about halfway down the rope and stopped. Just hung there in the air like a piece of laundry on the line. Actually most women didn't make it across like the men did because we don't weigh as much. So then we just had to pull ourselves the rest of the way to the shore. All in all, I realized it wasn't as bad as I had made it seem in my head and I didn't even scream like a girl. Dave said he was very surprised because he expected me to scream like a girl. There, I accomplished my goal!

The picture is of our friend Lori Larsen.