This was a great day! We all woke up early, ate and then took vans up into the mountains. Cool drive (unless you get car sick) with some amazing views. We were on our way to the Flight of the Gibbon which is a huge network of ziplines through the trees. They claim 7 km of ziplines which is hard to conceptualize. I went into it expecting 4-5 ziplines... I was way off! We were outfitted with the latest in gear and then bused to the start. We were split into groups of 7 with two guides to a group. We were tethered in at all times and really felt safe. The guides were methodical in their approach to safety for the kids and even for themselves. They gave us the basic safety instructions and then hooked in a kid and sent them on their first ride. The first one was short and then there were two more before we had to hike for a quarter mile up a switch backing trail. The next one was the longest at 800 meters and then it was zipline after zipline. Nonstop for the next two hours! It was an incredible network of bridges platforms, stairs and ziplines (a total of 39 stations). I never felt like I was in danger or doing anything dangerous. Lots of good fun and now I totally believe the 7 km number, here are some pictures.
I was also very impressed with their construction methods. The trees were protected from the cables and there were no direct attachment to the trees. There is evidence that they loosen and move the attachment points as the trees grow. This is, of course, in their best interest because the longer the trees stay alive the less work they need to do but I was not really expecting it. Great experience!
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