As I have mentioned in several posts, heights are not my thing, and yet I find myself continuously trying to face my fear of them. For half my life flying was a process. I’d have a panic attack waiting for the plane to take off, and once it was in the air, I would have to drug myself with sleeping medication just to survive the trip. Then when I moved to England and started traveling around to different countries, flying became second nature. Sometimes I’d even take two flights a day. So, you can imagine my surprise to find that my fear of heights hadn’t diminished in the least, when I attempted to zip line.
Whenever someone in the past had told me they have gone zip lining, I instantly pictured a tropical setting, with someone at the top of a mountain strapping you into a harness, flying over the treetops of a jungle, and then sliding into the finish point, where another person unclips you. I envied those people, thinking about how beautiful the views must be as they sliced through the air; feeling completely free and weightless. My experience in Interlaken, Switzerland didn’t exactly go as smoothly, but it’s definitely an experience to write about.
It was the last day of our weekend trip to Interlaken, Switzerland, and a group of people had decided to go to a place called Seilpark. Both guides from Bus2Alps and locals alike agreed it was worth trying if you were looking for something fun to do at a lower price. With only a few hours to spare before heading back to Italy, I decided to join in the fun.
Getting up there
The main activities center in town, literally around the corner from Balmers Herberge Hostel, where they sell all of the snow sports equipment, was the meeting point. A van shuttled customers to and from the park throughout the day. As our van ventured out of the city and towards the countryside, I started to get anxious, like I always do when things involve heights. How high would I actually be? How sturdy is the line? Has anyone died on this thing before? What the hell did I sign myself up for? And by the time we pulled up to the site, I had decided I was never making a rash decision while intoxicated again.
From the ground looking up, it actually didn’t look too intimidating. The Park had created an elevated obstacle course, using the surrounding trees to build wooden platforms as resting points. Overhead, there were people tightrope walking from one tree to the next, others were clinging to nets or making their way across circular wooden planks fifty feet in the air. It looked like the course consisted of obstacles testing ones endurance with zip lines intermixed, rather than just zip line.
After being helped into a harness and given a set of gloves, the guide explained that the entire course was made up of blue and red bungee wires. Blue meant it was a zip line section, and red meant it was an obstacle section, which told you which set of clips to use off of your harness. He explained there were eight different rope trails connecting over 50 platforms of height, ranging from beginner to difficult, and you choose accordingly. The one rule of the course was to always be clipped in, and with the ten minute explanation we were on our merry way.
As I approached the first course (one of the easier ones listed) all I could think about was “I can’t believe I don’t have a guide with me. If they knew how clumsy I am, they would not be letting me do this alone.” I tried to swallow my nerves, and climbed up to the first wooden platform. The minute I started to walk across the tightrope, I knew I had been stupid to wear fashionable boots rather than rent grungy hiking sneakers, bad life choice.
The difficult part about the courses, are that you can’t just quit in the middle, or turn around and go back; you have to keep pushing forward, facing the obstacles until you finish. Although all of the obstacles push your body to be agile and alert, two of the sections really freaked me out. One obstacle in the easier course, where you had to walk across circular planks, had me fearfully frozen in place, holding onto the bungee cord for dear life. This forced me to break the rules, and use my zip line to get across to the other tree, rather than painfully walk. Desperate times call for desperate measures, but this is how much of an idiot I looked like:
The other moment, where I questioned my sanity, was when I was standing 70 feet in a tree about to zip line across a stretch of land. I actually think Paragliding was less scary than being up in that tree. I was inches away from peeing myself, when friends on the ground talked me into clipping myself in and just making the jump. I closed my eyes as the wind whipped my face, and although my nerves were shot, once I got to the other side, I felt empowered.
I’m not going to lie, this obstacle course was definitely a challenge, both mentally and physically, for me. Like most things in life, some people will excel at it and others may find it takes them a little longer to complete it, but the goal is just to finish. Sometimes it’s good to take a risk and push yourself. At 69 francs a person, it’s definitely an adventure worth taking.
