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As the story told, we made a trip back to Gravity Canyon.

They have a ride called "The Flying Fox."  It's basically a 1200 yard long cable that is hooked at one end 600 feet from the canyon floor.  It slopes downward under the bridge and then back up to hook on another canyon wall.  You basically lay down in a hammock that's connected to some pulleys and they turn you loose.  By the time you get to the bottom of the cable, you're doing 100 MPH!  Then you start up the other side, scrubbing off speed.  You basically pendulum back and forth until you run out of kinetic energy.  It looks something like this:

TheFox.mpg (33.8 MB)

Once you finally stop, this little orange thing comes down the cable, hooks on to you, and begins pushing you back up the cable.  It takes 3 minutes from the time it hooks on, 'til you're back up at the top.  Did I mention that at the top we're dangling 600 feet from the canyon floor?

This video is quite long, and doesn't show much, download only if you're bored.

TheFox2.mpg (101 MB)

After that, I got REAL brave and decided I could do the Bungy Jump.  It's only 260 feet from the canyon floor!  And the water under the bridge was at least 7 or 8 inches deep.

They put the harness on me and then led me out onto the bridge where the bungy jump was to take place, and then promptly attached a cable to me so I wouldn't fall off.  The whole operation is slick.  They have a water powered lift which lowers a guy down to the raft on the "river" below, then they bring the lift back up, and the person jumps.  After they finish bouncing, they are lowered down to the raft where the guy unhooks them from the rope and the rope is hauled back in.  The water powered lift is then lowered back down to the raft and both people are hauled back up to the bridge.  It's a real slick deal.

Anyway, they get the guy in the lift and start lowering him down.  I was watching through the grate as they lowered him down.  He was probably half way down when I started getting a little bit spooked.  I told myself to not look down or I'd chicken out.  Before I knew it, the lift was back up and the guy asked me if I'd ever bungy jumped before, of course I hadn't.  He explained that he would have me walk out onto "the diving board," which had a couple of foot prints marked near the end of it.  He would tell me arms up, then he'd say 3 - 2 - 1 - bungy.  At that point, I was to jump out as far as I could.  "When you hit the end of the rope you'll start back up.  Do not touch the rope, keep your arms out."  Sounded like sound advice to me.  In the video, you'll see me start to "duck walk" out toward the end of the diving board.  Notice the big red ball near my ankles.  I was focusing on the end of the board, not the 260 foot drop at the end of it.  I slid my first foot into place and as I brought the other foot forward, the know went over the end of the board and almost yanked my feet out from under me.  You'll see me throw my arms out to catch my balance.

"Arms up.... 3 - 2 - 1 - Bungy!"  I wish there was sound on this.  I leaped out and that was the first time I looked down.  "Holy Sh...."  Uhhh...."Poop!!!!" I screamed all the way down.  Once I hit the end of the rope and started back up, I just laughed my butt off!!!!  We have it on our camcorder, but I'm having trouble getting the sound to transfer to the computer, but more videos will be available later.

Bungee.mpg (21.9 MB)

More videos will follow!