On Sunday, during the Labor Day weekend, Dave and I spent all day zip lining and river rafting at the Harpers Ferry Adventure Center, which is 1 hour and 15 minutes away from our home. Harpers Ferry is a historic town in West Virginia. It is situated at the confluence of the Potomac and Shenandoah rivers where the U.S. states of Maryland, Virginia and West Virginia meet (from Wikipedia). Harpers Ferry Adventure Center, formerly Butt Tubes, is located 3 miles south east of Harpers Ferry in Purcellville, Virginia and offers a variety of outdoor activities. It is a small place, but there are picnic areas with tables, charcoal grills, and a sand volleyball court for customer’s use. A souvenir store, a small food court and changing rooms are also avaulable. Here we are at the center. It was starting to rain a little.
Any person participating in an activity with Harpers Ferry Adventure Center must complete a Liability Waiver.
Staging area.
First on our list was zip lining. One of the buses from the staging area took us to the designated area, where we were provided the necessary equipment: helmets, harnesses and gloves.
One by one, we all had to undergo the training by taking a ride on the low to the ground zip line. You can, barely, see it on the picture on the left running from the wooden platform. The instructor taught us how to turn using our wrists, how to slow down before stopping and how to climb back to the tower if you stopped too early on zip line. Certainly, there was no comparison with very long and high zip lines in Cancun or Jamaica, because everything there was automatic. It was a little challenging over here, because we were responsible for controlling our rides ourselves.
Brand new 1.5-2 hour zip line tour is complete with 7 zips and a Sky Bridge with heights up to 40 feet/12 meters, zips up to 425 ft/130 meters, and a 100 ft/30 meters Sky Bridge, which run through the tree tops along the Potomac River. Here is a picture of the first tower, where the zip line journey begins.
Here is the second tower that leads to the Sky Bridge.
The brand new Sky Bridge is pretty shaky. 🙂
The last zip line. We took two rounds on the zip line course. It felt much more comfortable the second time.
Here is the video from some of the zip line rides for you to get the feeling. All pictures and videos were taken with a Point of View (POV) camera, which was mounted on Dave’s helmet.
After lunch we left for a 3 hour White Water Rafting trip on a 7 mile stretch of the Shenandoah and Potomac Rivers near Harpers Ferry, WV. The trip was the perfect option for beginner to intermediate level paddlers to explore Class I-III (sometimes I-II+) rapids. We started paddling on a short flat water section on the Shenandoah River. It was a beautiful ride in between green banks of the river filled with wildlife. We saw some herons and even a bald eagle.
Our guide told us some facts from the local history while floating by the Harpers Ferry National Historical Park. He pointed out the Jefferson Rock high in the mountains. The name of this landmark derives from Thomas Jefferson, who stood there on October 25, 1783. He found the view from the rock impressive and wrote in Notes on the State of Virginia that “this scene is worth a voyage across the Atlantic” (from wikipedia). The view is supposed to be incredible from there.
The River Rafting trip took a little over 3 hours, so we had about a half hour break. It was raining and there was no view finder on our POV camera, which is why rain drops are visible on some pictures. 🙂
During the break we explored a natural water slide, surrounded by big and slippery underwater rocks. It was enjoyable, we just needed to be cautious. Water in the river was surprisingly very warm.
After the break we continued our river ride. Mostly, it was nice and calm, but once in a while we got into some drifts and had some excitement.
In the video, you can see, that we did some raft surfing and went through some drifts, which were nothing special this time of the year. At the end of the video and on the picture above you can see a lot of debris in the river from the bridge, which was destroyed by a flood in a year 1870. Dave and I enjoyed our whole day well spent outdoors. Besides, we got some exercise paddling and we had FUN!