Savvy Traveler: High flying fun in Vernon

Any number of northern ski mountains seeking ways of bringing crowds in during the off-ski season have resorted to imaginative methods of luring paying customers and giving them their money’s worth.

New Jersey’s Mountain Creek in Vernon, has opened a series of zip lines that is selling out day after day.

While other zip lines may be higher and faster, the Zoom Zip Line complex at Mountain Creek is unique in what it has to offer. Tops amongst that is the cadre of competent, friendly and courteous coterie of young guides.

Group starting times are spaced well so that no group encroaches on the other. At the office you’ll be required to sign a waiver and then gear up in a harness that will later hook onto a “trolley” that will carry you along the zip cable.

One thing unique to Zoom at Mountain Creek is the first line. Both experienced and novice flyers are required to go here first. It is a short, 200-foot line that familiarizes the participant with a zip line and the scariest part of all…stepping off a wooden platform into an abyss and then flying down a cable at considerable speed.

The guides for our group, Lordy and Jess, were two totally patient young women, answering questions and suiting everyone up. Then comes the moment of reckoning: You are in the harness, the trolley is placed on the cable and you lean back. The release is pulled and you are literally flying down the line.

Flying? What’s going to stop you? How bad will the jolt be?

Those thoughts went through the minds of everyone as each stepped up to the edge of the platform. That feeling intensified as you realized you were coming in full tilt to the end of the line.

The stop, while abrupt, was surprisingly gentle. The trolley hit the springs and they compressed rapidly, absorbing the shock of the sudden stop. That’s when the impatience sets in…impatience for the rest of your crew to finish so that you can hit the next stop.

The next run is the highest, steepest and longest. It rises some 200 feet over the forest and a lake, and runs for more than 1,500 feet. This is where a zip line gets its name because you are moving at quite a pace over the lake and the platform ahead, that looked like a speck when you started, is rapidly growing in size.

Relax, let go, enjoy the ride. The only time you really have to hold on is when you are coming in to the platform.

Walking from the second to the third and then the fourth zip line of the adventure is exhilarating. The last run comes in low over the lake and although it looks as though you could run your toes through the water, you’d have to be bigger than Michael Jordan.

The scariest part of the entire day is walking from the last run to the field where an old German military truck is waiting to take you back to the cabriolet. You’ve got to cross a rope-style bridge of sturdy wires and a metal plank walkway.

Looks easy? Don’t kid yourself. People who took the zip in stride were hanging on to the bridge supports for dear life as it swayed back and forth. Stepping off at the far end onto solid ground presented the greatest feeling of accomplishment.