Big Nerd Ranch Days 6-7: It's a bird! It's a plane! It's a flying geek!
Phew, it has been a crazy week! I have written so much code in the past seven days that I’m surprised my hands can still type.
On Thursday, we had the best brain break we could have asked for: zip lines. I posted a teaser before, so here’s the real thing. (A huge thanks to Kevin, Goran, and Mike for the video clips!)
The first tower we climbed was about 60 feet tall. Once we got to the top, we realized there was a tiny little platform hanging over the edge that we had to stand on to go down the line. By then, I was white as a sheet and ready to cry. (For those who don’t know me, I’m absolutely terrified of heights.) I was 6th or 7th in line. This clip shows the the tiny launch platform and the view from the tower.
As soon as I got in the air, however, all the fear was gone. The first jump was the hardest part of the entire thing. In this clip of the first zip line, you can even hear me screaming, “Woo-hoo!” The first zip line was about 1,000 feet long and got me up to a speed of 35 mph or so.
After that, it was easy as pie. After the first zip line’s ground landing, we started climbing this system of platforms and bridges through the woods, connected by the occasional zip line. We were never less than 50 feet off the ground. The second zip line went from platform to platform, got me up to 45 mph, and was 770 feet long. Here’s the clip.
Some of the bridges were only a single steel cable that we walked across like a tightrope. For all of them, we were hooked to a secure wire above our heads, so we could not fall. The third zip line left from a tiny little platform, 200 feet above the ground, on what seemed to be an old telephone pole. It went over 1,000 feet across a gorge and a river, which was at least a few hundred feet below the zip line.
The next clip is me from the launching point of the last zip line, followed by a clip of me coming in to the last tower. Last is a clip from a classmate, Goran, who shot the entire thing from a first-person point of view. He gets some good shots of the beautiful gorge below the zip line.