ZIP-a-dee-doo-dah

I’ve always enjoyed a good adventure. Several years ago, my hubby surprised me with a zip-lining experience in Georgia as part of a waterfall / hiking trip. We had a blast! So when he was scheming on what to do during our Durango trip for our 30th anniversary, I wasn’t too surprised when he found another zip-line excursion–on the longest course in the country!

The day started with a train ride to Soaring. This course is not accessible by road. You have to hike in, ride the Durango-Silverton train, or take a helicopter. The college students who work there over the summer live at the ranch full-time with no cell service, no Internet, just lots of God’s gorgeous creation and a steady stream of strangers invading their space. One or two people live there year-round, only leaving to stock up on supplies.

I love mountains and rivers and forests, so the scenery offered on this course contained all my favorites! We crossed the Animas River about 7 times, I think. Beautiful!

The pictures below show where we stopped for our morning snack. A scrumptious cranberry bar that had some kind of caramel goodness inside. In fact, the local inhabitants (chipmunks) know to expect crumbs at this time every day, so they show up and scurry around the rocks just waiting for the cookie to crumble. One of our sky rangers (Jesse) took some photos for us. Then she cracked me up by photo-bombing a selfie just for kicks. There were 22 of us on the course that day, and probably about a dozen or more sky rangers. They made a point to learn our names, played photographer regularly, cracked jokes, and offered constant encouragement as they caught us and kept us from slamming into tree trunks. They were fabulous!

My favorite zipline of the morning was when we got to slide through an aspen grove. I adore aspen trees. Their white bark is so pretty, and so different from anything we have in Texas. I managed to get a video of my husband zipping through the aspens.

Some of the sky rangers were also ecologists and shared interesting tidbits about the land and forest around us as we moved through the course. One of the unexpected highlights of the day, though, was the food. We were treated to a gourmet lunch on the river. So yummy! I had Asian chicken lettuce wraps with fruit and sweet potato chips along with a delicious ice cream sandwich for dessert. Wes opted for the classic ham on a pretzel bun with potato salad. All made to order and fabulous. We ate every bite, which made hiking (or waddling) up the mountain quite a challenge afterward!

We had such a great time.

What’s the most adventurous thing you’ve done on a vacation or excursion?