The Thunderbird

Today I rode the Thunderbird zip line at Scenic Caves for the second time. I must admit it's a pretty cool ride. It's 2600 feet long with a significant vertical drop which makes for a fast ride down the hill. Sadly it's not open to the public yet because they still have many finishing touches to complete as well as getting the green light from a government safety group.
The ride starts with ground training where we have 2 cables set up beside the zip to demonstrate how we will harness them and to allow guests to get a feel for the braking system. Once we feel they are comfortable with ground training they will have to climb the 60 foot spiral staircase to the "launching" platform. The guests are then harnessed up again, two at a time side by side about 10 feet apart. When all systems are go the two gates open simultaneously, we inform the catchers at the bottom that we are releasing and send the two zipliners on their rapid descent. A ride down will take anywhere from 40-60 seconds depending on how fast the guests want to go.
On todays zip ride I went side by side with friend and co-worker Skip who happens to weigh about 20 pounds less than me which meant that the race to the bottom was no contest with me, the fat guy, arriving much earlier than Skip.  For me I think the coolest part of the ride is when you are hanging there in the harness and the gate finally opens. You get this incredible view of the bay area and of the cable stretching down the hill to the unloading platform which looks pretty small when viewed from the top. I suspect there will be some guests who will be unable to go through with the ride when the gates open and they get a good look at what is about to happen.
All of the Ecotour staff is now training on the Thunderbird and we will be ready to go when construction is complete and the approvals are in place. We are hoping that will be in about a weeks time.
An interesting note. It's called the Thunderbird because the Rama Ojibway believed the thunderbird, which they thought controlled the weather, had its nest on the escarpment near Collingwood. That seems so silly now because we all know God controls the weather.