We spent this afternoon taking the Canopy Tour at Bretton Woods in northern New Hampshire. This is a brand new attraction and one of only two canopy tours in New England. What an amazing experience! Riders fly through the treetops on “zip lines”, which are cables strung between platforms placed high in the treetops. Riders wear a harness that clips on to the line; there’s no seat and the experience feels very much like flying. It’s just you and the cable zipping through the trees at speeds of up to 35 MPH. There are nine zip lines in all, the longest running more than 800 feet. A couple of rappels are thrown in for good measure.

I suffer from a fear of heights, so some of the 100-foot-high platforms were a little unsettling to me, but there’t nothing to fear. Riders are attached to cables at all times and the guides were thoroughly in control. Our guides said that in nearly a year of zipping, the worst catastrophe was one rider who finished a few feet short of the platform and had to pull himself in by hand.

This was a memorable experience at a modest price of $100. The weather was uncooperative – the rain that has pelted New England all summer continued off and on all afternoon – but everyone in our group had such a great time that no one noticed. Here are some videos to show you what we experienced.

Our guide, Mike, took this video from the rider’s perspective.

Dana comes in for a landing.

So does Paul.

And if your acrophobia hasn’t been assaulted enough yet, here’s one of the two rope bridges that swing 50 or 60 feet off the ground.