Zip Line

Doesn’t it sound like fun to glide through the treetops, seeing things from a bird’s-eye point of view? Zip-lining is a fun and relatively safe way to leave the ground and soar like an eagle, or for some maybe a turkey, and just about anyone can do it.

A zip-line, also known--rather intimidatingly--as a death slide or a flying fox, is a very simple contraption. A set of pulleys or rollers ride atop a cable, attached to a harnessed rider who is pulled down the incline by gravity. Who knew something so fun could be made to sound so boring.

Making It Happen

Commercial zip-line operators can be around the world, especially in hilly or mountainous areas. A quick Internet search will undoubtedly turn up several opportunities nearby. These will be mostly easy to moderate level rides, great for kids and old geezers.

If you’re in the market for some real thrills, however, you could travel to Nepal and ride the ZipFlyer, billed as the world’s most extreme death slide, 1,800 meters long over a 2,000 foot drop at up to 120 MPH. Or if you’re more of a city person, cruise down to Panama for a hair-raising ride on the world’s largest urban zip-line.

And if you really get the zip-lining bug, you can buy your very own, set it up in your backyard, and enjoy a ride anytime. Might be best to check with the neighbors and the homeowner’s association first, you know what killjoys they can be.

Tying two sticks to one’s feet to facilitate travel over deep snow dates back to the days of the Cro-Magnon man over 20,000 years ago, as shown by Paleolithic cave drawings. The oldest archeological evidence of an ancient ski bum was found in Russia and is about 6,000 years old. Starting in the mid 19th century though, skiing began to evolve into a recreational activity and a competitive sport. According to the International Skiing History Association, skiing enjoyed a surge in popularity in the 1950’s and 60’s, due to improvements in skis, boots, and bindings, making skiing easier and more accessible.

Skiing equipment has continued to improve since then, and modern materials and designs have made skiing easier and more comfortable than ever.

After the invention of the bicycle in the mid 19th century, it didn’t take long before someone had the bright idea to stick an engine on one. The first attempt at a powered bicycle was driven by a steam engine and appeared in 1869. An engineer named Gottlieb Daimler, who went on to become famous for his automobiles, gets the credit for the first true motorcycle in 1885. Things took off from there.

Although snowboarding might seem to have a lot in common with skiing and sledding, it’s actually a child of the surfing craze of the 1950’s and 60’s. In 1964, an unusually enterprising beach bum and surf nut named Sherman Poppen had the idea of a surfboard for snow. He approached a manufacturing company with his idea and a prototype he had built for his daughter, and soon the snow surfer, or ‘snurfer’, was in production, selling over a million units in the following years. The fad fizzled out however, and might have disappeared forever if not for the efforts of two other surfers who picked up the ball and ran with it in 1970. The sport caught on and grew in popularity, and today enjoys worldwide interest and enthusiasm.