There’s that old saying that if humans were made to fly, we would have been born with wings but if we didn’t challenge our natural limitations now & then, we’d still be living in caves and probably walking on all fours still. So what better way to celebrate our human evolution than by testing it in a thrilling, but safe way?

I had wanted to zipline for a few years and after enough conjoling, I eventually succeeded in convincing a few other thrill seekers to join me, two of them being my own children. So early one morning a few weeks ago, we headed over the mountain pass to squash any fear of heights and feel the thrill of soaring through the air together.

There is a weight requirement for ziplining and Huck was periously close to not quite making it but he was so determined not to miss out that he spent the whole week prior eating as much as his 8 year old frame could hold in hopes of gaining those last two pounds. Then just to be sure, he smuggled in a ziplock bag of coins in his pocket for his weigh in. As he stepped on the scale, we all held our breath when the instructor asked him to get on it one more time, but finally, the extra calories and the coins did their jobs and we were off!

As we worked our way through the nine zip lines, our confidence grew along with the length of the runs. I was feeling pretty cocky until I got a look at zip #4, which traversed an entire canyon making our team look like little ants on the other side. But following London’s lead, we all took the plunge eventually and sailed over the tree tops to the next platform.

The nine runs took us a few hours to complete and by the last one, I felt like I could have started all over again just to feel the wind in my hair one more time. The instructors were great, especially with the kids. They got all of them to try new tricks from cannonballing to even sailing off backward from the platform, a trick I myself liked as I thought it was easier to jump from where you’ve been instead of jumping into the unknown. If that isn’t an analogy for life, I don’t know what is!

Leavenworth Ziplines