Tuesday morning was going to be an early one because the zip line tour left the docks at 7:30. When the banging started on the deck below us, I took that to mean we were near Ketchikan, so I got up, showered, shaved and generally got the day started. Only then did I look out our window and realize that it was early.  Really early.

I did manage to get back to sleep and stayed that way until our 5:45 wake up call; except the wake up call was actually an hour earlier due to a time zone change when we left Canadian waters around 2 am.  Messed up is about the best way to describe the situation. We were not the only ones who received early calls, there were quite a few waiting for breakfast an hour before the dining room opened.

It was raining when we looked out at the docks of Ketchikan, Misty in Ketchikan the thought of zipping among the trees eighty feet off the ground in a damp drizzle was dismal, but we’d paid for the excursion, and had a dry room to return to, so we figured we might as well go. That was good thinking. By the time we got to the zip line site the rain had stopped and the cloud cover was breaking.

Six brave souls made up our group and we started to get to know each other as the staff at Alaska Rainforest Sanctuary helped us into our rigs and gave us preliminary safety briefings. We were repeatedly assured that what we were doing was reasonably safe. Charleen needed a lot of reassurance for that; she doesn’t like heights.

David and Powers, our guides, had the right combination of business and humor that put all of us at ease and made the whole experience “can’t stop grinning” fun. A lot that goes through your mind as you climb onto a little platform eighty feet above the ground, and get clipped to two wires strung between your tree and another one “way over there”, but all of that goes away once you put your feet up and start zipping. Off she goes

The group loosened up as confidence grew. By the time we reached the seventh line, everyone was grinning like a loon. The last line had a tree (surprise there, we’re in a forest), that was close enough to slap, and Powers suggested that we try and give the forest a “high-five”. A bit of a leap, a slap of the tree and then a nice long ride to the last platform.

From there, only a short free rappel to the ground and we were ready for the slide down the side, a 250 foot slide that brought us back to where we had started as nervous newbies just a short time ago. Who would think you could have so much fun hanging from a wire?

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