When I saw the zipline at Go Ape, my thoughts drifted back a century or so to the kids who lived on the south side of the Rocky River in Chatham County who had to get to school on the north side of the river. With no bridge for miles, someone strung a steel cable across the river, tied it off around some trees, then had the kids ride in a bucket across the river to school every morning, back home every afternoon.
I thought about those frigid January mornings riding in an ice bucket. I thought about those days after (or during) a heavy rain, when the roiling Rocky would have been nipping at their keisters. I thought about how this “zipline” was likely devoid of rigorous safety oversight — or any oversight at all.
And I thought about how those kids who rode in a bucket over the river to school every day likely went through life nonplussed by the challenges they faced, challenges that, compared to their commute, likely seemed pretty manageable.

Lessons learned from the past

Ziplines and high ropes courses have blossomed over the past few years. One estimate puts the number in the U.S. at 7,500, with 200 to 400 more built each year. Ziplines tend to sell adrenaline; facilities that weave ziplines into a high-ropes course take it up a notch: sure, there’s the adrenaline, but there’s also the psychological element. Here’s how the Jim Wall High Challenge Course at N.C. State (in Schenck Forest), which includes 15 high course elements 35 to 40 feet above ground, describes its mission:
“High course elements push participants to go beyond their perceived limits while working as an individual or as a team. Participants are challenged to expand their comfort zone, build self-confidence, and overcome self-imposed barriers, while being motivated and encouraged by other group members.”
In other words, the course aims to teach the lessons some kids once got simply by going to school.
I thought about this while standing on a small platform 35 feet in the air at Blue Jay Point County Park, home of Go Ape, the Triangle’s first open-to-the-public zipline/challenge course.

Going Ape

Go Ape has five stations. Enter a secured station — you access each fenced station after entering the pass code de jour — climb a ladder to a platform, head out on ropes challenges with such apropos appellations as Log Swing, Spider’s Web, Double Stirrups and Apple Picker’s Ladder, end each station zipping back to terra firma. Along the way are two Tarzan swings: swing from a cable into a cargo net. From the time you step foot off the ground, you are secured by at least two cables, sometimes three.
Sessions begin with a safety session, starting with properly fitting your harness and progressing to how (and when) to clip in to the safety lines, the zipline cables, the Tarzan swing. The safety session takes maybe 20 minutes; after that, I was surprised to find, you are on your own (instructors patrol the grounds, making sure you’re clipping in and offering advice when needed).
That you are essentially on your own is a bold thing in this day and age. The instruction is thorough and complete, but you must pay attention and you must do as directed.
In short, you must take responsibility. Being 35 feet in the air is good incentive.

Sense of self

You also must have a strong sense of self. Or have an interest in developing a sense of self. Getting on a plane and assuming a 60-ton tube of steel can stay aloft at 30,000 feet requires faith in others — from aerospace engineers, to mechanics to pilots and air traffic controllers. Stepping off a platform 40-feet up and trusting that a steel cable and your harness will keep you from crashing to the ground sooner than intended depends, in part, upon your trust in the folks running the facility. In the case of the zipline, though, you must take that first step, and in the case of the wobbly sky bridges and other high-rope challenges, the subsequent steps after that.
Are many people freaked out by that, I asked Go Ape Deputy Manager Josephine Bland.
“Not really,” she said, “because if you fall, you aren’t falling far.” A foot, maybe, before the double safety cables grab.
So most people are bold enough to try: that was the good news.
The not-so-good news came from my instructor, Cameron. He agreed that most people can handle the fear factor.
The one thing that will keep people from completing the course:
“They don’t have the physical strength to climb the cargo net after the Tarzan Swing.”

* * *

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Tuesday, I had one of the more exhausting times I’ve had in 20 years of covering outdoor adventure — and I was in an air-conditioned building. At a catered affair.
The affair was a media event sponsored by the North Carolina Division of Tourism, a gathering of tourism promotion types from around the state and the people they hoped would write about them. People such as myself.
Immediately upon walking in the door of the Contemporary Art Museum — CAM for short — in downtown Raleigh I was met by my old buddy, Suzanne Brown. Suzanne and I worked together for years in the Features Department of The News & Observer, Suz overseeing everything entertainment, me doing my outdoors thing. In 2008, we were both part of a massive newsroom exodus. I landed here, Suz  at Tourism, a job that suits her as she wasted little time getting my attention.
“Do you know about the Southeast Coast Saltwater Paddle Trail?” she asked.
I didn’t, but I didn’t feel too bad upon learning that the trail is a work in progress, a proposed — though some of it exists — paddle trail running from Virginia south through the Carolinas and Georgia, where it will meet with the existing 1,515-mile Florida Circumnavigational Saltwater Paddling Trail. A kind of Appalachian Trail for paddlers.
“Cool!” I said.
“What about Jetpacks?” she wanted to know.
“And what about telephones with TV screens and flying cars?” I said.
No, she said, you can now rent a JetPak on the Outer Banks.
Then, in a Graduatesque nod to the Next Big Thing, she leaned in and whispered “Zip Lines.”

“Have you been to ZipQuest in Fayetteville? It’s a two-and-a-half-hour canopy tour that takes you over the largest waterfall in the eastern U.S.”
A zipline over the highest waterfall in the East — in Fayetteville? I started edging away.
“You can also fly a Wright Brothers glider!” she yelled, chasing me down the hall.
The madness continued inside the main hall.
At the Halifax County booth, Lori Medlin, president and CEO of the county’s convention and visitors bureau asked if I’d been to the Sylvan Heights Bird Park in Scotland Neck. Hike 5 miles at this 18-acre preserve, take pictures of more than 170 bird species from around the world. “There’s even a treehouse. And it’s handicap-accessible!”
“You like trails?” she continued. “The 7-mile-long Roanoke Canal Trail in Roanoke Rapids is pretty popular.”
Lori shared a table with Claire Phillips, director of marketing and public relations for the Pinehurst/Southern Pines/Aberdeen Area. I expected to hear something about golf. “We have an extensive greenway system,”  she said.

I found myself at the Fayetteville table, expecting to hear more about the zipline to outer space. And I did, but I also learned that Fayetteville is also home to the biggest indoor climbing gym in the state, The Climbing Place, with 18,000 square feet of climbing surface, 40,000 holds and 60 top ropes.
I learned that Chowan County has more than 300 miles of mapped paddle trails, that Washington has a Sunrise Yoga Paddle service as well as a Wine and Cheese Paddle, and that Edenton rents canoes and kayaks out of its harbor.
I learned from Craig Distl that since the Hawksnest Resort near Boone abandoned skiing and snowboarding a few years back it’s gone tubing and zipline crazy. And I learned that while they still ski and ride at Ski Beech, the highest ski area in the East, they’ve also opened the Emerald Outback, an 8-mile mountain bike trail network.
I learned that the Biltmore in Asheville is getting its own marathon and that a mountaintop-to-mountaintop zipline is being planned at Navitat north of Asheville.

Farther west, I learned from Charles Conner with the Nantahala Outdoor Center that the NOC is about more than just really fast moving water. Survival, for instance.
“We’ve got a Survival School that shows you how to survive 72 hours in the wild,” he said, adding, “Seventy-two hours — that’s about how long most people stay lost.” The ones who end up getting found, that is.
By the time I’d worked my way to the westernmost part of the state, I was pooped. But not too pooped to visit the craft beer booth, where Win Bassett was more than happy to fill my sampler cup with the handiwork of North Carolina’s 65 craft breweries (or at least the 65 that belong to NC Brewing). Fullsteam Brewery’s Summer Basil was particularly tasty.
A handful of booths remained, but — holy cow! — I’d just been across North Carolina on everything from a zipline to a JetPak to the Wright Brothers glider.
I needed a nap.

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