Alpine Adventures is one of those places that you drive by every day and think, “wow, this place looks interesting,” and yet never stop. I decided to stop. Alpine Adventures is located in Lincoln, N.H., the same town that Loon Mountain calls home. It is considered one of New England’s premier outdoor adventure companies, offering snowmobiling, off-road safaris, and zip-line canopy tours.
A zip-line consists of a pulley suspended on a cable mounted on an incline. The design of a basic zip-line is to propel the rider by gravity to traverse from the top to the bottom of an inclined cable, usually made of stainless steel, by holding on or attaching to the freely moving pulley. Zip-lines are mainly used for entertainment and can even be found on playgrounds. The new phenomenon is longer and higher rides as a means for exploring and accessing unusual areas, such as rainforest canopies or I-93.
This new “thrill ride” has been popping up all over the world in places such as Costa Rica, Nicaragua and Lincoln, N.H. About.com even has an article about how to take a zip line tour. It explains how to find the right tour for you and your family, if there is any basic training required, and what to wear. Being adventure education majors and always looking for the newest adrenaline rush, my boyfriend and I decided to check out Alpine Adventures.
A reservation is required at Alpine Adventures and it can be done online at their website alpinesnowmobiling.com. The company offers two courses, the treetop canopy tour or the sky rider zip line tour. Both tours are $85 per person and offer different types of zips. The treetop canopy tour is a “true” treetop canopy tour. It is the company’s original course and the first to be found in New England. You zip from tree to tree through the forest on six different zip lines ranging from 80 to 600 feet. The tour includes a 60 foot high, a 75 foot long suspension bridge spanning the “Barron Gorge,” and a 35 mph optional freefall called the Zip #7.
The sky rider zip line tour is the newer of the two and is meant for adrenaline junkies. This is the one I chose. This tour has five zip lines, including two dual zip lines so you can race, a trip across “Treewalk Village” where you get great views of the White Mountains, a gentle ground take-off on New England’s longest zip line (over 3/4 of a mile long), and the “White Knuckle Pine” zip which has an 80 foot drop and zip speeds of up to 50 mph. This tour is encouraged for second-time zippers or enthusiastic first-timers.
When the big day arrived, Chris, the owner, gave us some forms to fill out. The forms basically said that we were responsible for ourselves if something happened whilst zipping. We were signing our lives away for a little burst of adrenaline and a taste of adventure. Chris explained to us that we should only bring out what we needed and that we should lock our cell phones and wallets in the car. He showed us where to hang our car keys and told us to bring our cameras. We were going to want pictures of our experience.
Chris took us and the rest of the group we would be zipping with into another room, where there were a bunch of harnesses, pulleys, cows tails and helmets. He gave us a quick debrief about what we would be experiencing that day. We were told that there would be five zips and that we’d be up really high. He made sure we all had proper close-toed footwear and that our hair was pulled back off of our faces.
He explained that each zip was challenge by choice. We only had to challenge ourselves as much as we felt comfortable. If that meant climbing the ladder up to the zip and then walking back down, then that is what our $85 would pay for. She handed us each a harness and taught us how to put it on and how to tighten it. We then received our cows tails, the piece of gear that would attach to our harness, through our pulley, and onto the cable. Last but not least, we put on our helmets. We then all put our hands in, yelled “zip away,” and headed out to the bus.
Alpine Adventure’s zipline courses are about 15 minutes south of their office and meeting spot, so we got to watch some DVD footage of other “zippers” while riding along. We eventually turned onto a dirt road and stopped in a little dirt parking lot where we met Tabitha and Jason. We climbed into our pinzgauer, a high mobility all terrain 4×4 or 6×6 military utility. Dust was flying as our military off-road vehicle took on gnarly rocks and deep grooves in the 4-foot-wide path that we were driving up. The ride lasted about five minutes and then we had reached the “Treetop Village.” Tabitha wasted no time in quickly explaining some of the safety guidelines and a quick how-to on how to steer and properly zip.
To get to the starting point of the first zip we had to cross a bridge that was elevated about 60 feet off the ground. Then all the girls headed to one platform while the guys headed to another right next to us. We were ready for our first tandem zip. My boyfriend and I were the last to go. I didn’t have to really do much to get set up. Tabitha tied me up and clipped me on and within a minute I was all ready to rely on a steel cable to get me from point A to point B.
My boyfriend was ready with the camera as Tabitha counted down from three. She pushed me off the platform on two (she wanted me to beat my boyfriend) and I was flying. With my yellow webbed cow tail supporting me and my hands wrapped tightly around a carabiner, I was soaring over the valley below, checking out the scenery, and waving to my boyfriend as he took pictures. This was quite a rush, this feeling of utter weightlessness. After a few seconds of gravity-defying freedom I was back to earth as guide Corey was waiting at the ending point, catching me and telling me to run it out on the dirt ground. Smiling, I remembered that there were still four more zips to go.
The next zip was different than the first because it was both longer and had a ground start. Basically we stepped off of the ground onto a wooden platform about five feet long. Dan hooked me in and I then had to walk to the back of the platform and take a running start to get going, whereas on the first zip line I had jumped off of a platform. This zip lasted about 1 minute and went for about ¾ of a mile. The view of the White Mountains was spectacular. Unfortunately, the wind was blowing towards me and that slowed me down a bit early so again, Corey was out on the line to catch me and pull me in to the ending platform. The third zip was quite similar to the first zip in that it was a tandem zip line and the fourth was similar to the second. But, the big thrill came with the fifth zip.
“White Knuckle Pine” is the name of the fifth zip and it has an 80 foot progressive drop and you can hit speeds up to 50 mph. After climbing the ladder to platform A and walking across a swinging bridge to platform B, Jason hooked me in to the cable. He gave me the option to jump off for the free fall or to stand backwards on the platform and then jump off that way. I chose to go forward. I wanted to feel butterflies, and I was not disappointed. I may have been flying before, but this was freefalling. I wanted an adrenaline rush and I sure got it. The cable started going uphill again to help slow me down and Tabitha was waiting with a ladder to catch me and cut me loose. This was the end of the tour. We loosened up our gear and headed back to our bus.
When we got back to base camp, we tipped our guides and handed back our gear. The experience, although slightly cheesy at times, was quite fun and definitely worth doing again, maybe through a different company or a different area. Zip line tours are just another activity on the ever growing list of adventure tourism. I can’t wait to see what the adrenaline junkies think of next.