Ok. Happy 2014! I really need to get back into the habit of updating this! I have been too busy doing the things to write about to actually have time to write about them :) Well, that's my excuse and I am sticking to it anyway!
Something that I had never really done before I came out here was Ziplining. I always had memories of being a child and sitting on one of the little rubber seats attached to a wire and being terrified of either falling off, hitting the post at the end, or getting to the stop at the end and falling off and hitting the post and have everyone laugh at me. Yes, I definitely had ziplining issues.
Then, not long after moving out here, some friends invited me to Vegas and we went out to
Bootleg Canyon where they have 4 ziplines, one of which was half a mile long.
After my initial nervous excitement, I was strapped into the harness and it just became nerves - I was terrified and found it hard to catch my breath! The guy started to count me down and I told him to stop counting and just let me go and so he did. Needless to say I screamed. A lot. Until I was halfway down the first line and realised that actually I was really enjoying the experience and started whooping instead.
When we got to the next station, the guide told me that I definitely had an impressive set of lungs on me - they could hear me screaming/whooping nearly all the way down.
My fear of the stopping at the other end was completely unjustified. They had blocks which slowed you down, but then also had your own braking system which acted on the same principle as a bicycle brake, and of course I have to mention the motto of the day (much to our amusement), was when in doubt spread 'em out - which meant when you hit the end you wanted your legs akimbo to stop you from swinging up and hitting the wire if you stopped suddenly.
The time went far too quickly and soon the four lines were over and I was for sure left wanting more. So when I was back home and the Bestie had planned a visit out to see me, I knew I had to find somewhere else to go to this and introduce her to the enormously fun activity.
So asking around, a friend at work recommended a new place that opened near to where he grew up in Wrightwood, CA.
Navitat is based in the San Gabriel Mountains about 75 miles away from Los Angeles.
It consists of eight zip lines, four rope bridges and three rappels (or abseils for the Brits amongst us!), if you take the Canopy Tour which is the one that we did.
The habitat that this course was on was completely different. Bootleg canyon was in the middle of the desert with sand as far as the eye can see. Navitat is based in the thick forested mountains, and the zipline platforms are on the trees themselves. They do this to try and keep the disruption to the environment to a minimum.
Once you have checked in at the visitor centre, they take you in a minibus up to the start of the course. This in itself is an adventure as the road going up there is very narrow and very twisty with a very steep drop to one side. As part of this, you actually drive over the San Andreas fault line. For those who live in the area it is probably nothing too impressive, but for me who's favourite aspect of geography when I was a child was earthquakes and volcanoes, this was almost like celebrity spotting!
Although I knew that I had done this before, the first line is always a little scary (always for me anyway!), even if it was the shortest one on the trail! You are given really good instruction on what to do, and the two guys who accompanied our group were great fun and very professional. What I was most worried about on this trip again was the breaking and being able to stop.
Unlike Bootleg Canyon where the breaks used were a similar principle to push bike breaks, here you stop by using your own gloved hand against the wire line. All the usual fear was running through my head about what happened if it didn't work and I couldn't stop, or going the other way, what happened if I gripped too hard - would I be left with one arm hanging from the wire whilst the rest of my body carried on going?? Well, you do hear horror stories and lets face it, a lot of the time I do have an overactive imagination! Luckily for me, none of this occurred and breaking was really easy and just as effective as before. In a way, I even felt more in control over it.
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| The Butterscotch Tree - smelled incredible! |
At one point, the tour guides told us to smell the tree. No one did to start with as they were such jokers we thought they were just trying to get us to look stupid by telling us that the trees smelled of butterscotch. In the end, my curiosity overcame my need not to look stupid, and incidentally, the tree did in fact smell of butterscotch. I did manage to resist the urge to lick the tree though. Barely.
I can't recommend this activity with this group enough. They made a fun activity superb! There is always banter going on between the tour guides and the group, which means that even when you are waiting for the rest of the group to catch up or waiting for your turn, there is not even a remote chance of boredom. Well how could there be with the spectacular mountain views that you get to see which will leave you speechless! The different stretches that you slide down are all different lengths and speeds and each has its own unique view. It is very hard to choose a favourite! Some go over really high ravines, where others may be faster and steeper. Every one was a tonne of fun!
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| The Sky Bridge |
Part of the course was called the Sky Bridge, which is basically a rope bridge, but stairs, which takes you to the next landing platform. It is one of the four rope bridges in the course, and on another the instructors like to scare good humoured participants by tipping the bridges! You are perfectly safe as you are harnessed in and they have double cables for each line as an extra safety feature, but it still went someway towards making me yelp and screech a bit!
The last thing to mention is the abseils or rappels. Unlike ones which I had done before where you walked down a surface, these were just lowering yourself down from the platform. I say lowering yourself in the loosest of terms, as the last one is like an assisted jump. You still have the sensation of falling with that which I am not a big fan of. You had the chance to go the easier way down (just a regular rappel), but as I was the last one to do it, I didn't want to be the one to wimp out, so I took the drop option also. It can be a funny thing, trying to make your body do something which your mind obviously really doesn't want to do. I remember lifting my leg to take a step forward and actually placing the foot down behind me instead. In the end the guide just gave me a good shove and sent me on my way! I was glad that I did it though and didn't let fear get in the way too much! :)
All in all we had a really great day. So good that when I told my niece about it, it was the first thing that I booked when she was coming over. One thing to be aware of though - although she was old enough (10 years minimum age), she didn't make the minimum weight limit by about 10 lbs or so - so on this occasion we didn't get to go which was a shame. But the guys there were really kind and helpful and gave us a full refund. I would definitely go back again and recommend to anyone to go try it out. We felt really safe all the way through and had smiles on our faces that lasted the long drive back home again!
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| The size if the smiles represents how much fun we had!! :) |
On this particular trip we saw two types of dolphin, the Common, and the Bottlenose. The Common were in a greater number and liked swimming right up close and personal to the boat. The captain had said that if you could see about 20 of them, then the pod was probably around 200!
