Ziplining in Austin

By Margie Goldsmith

Ziplining in Austin

I am flying 45 feet up in the air, shooting across a 350-foot-long cable in Texas Hill Country, 30 miles from downtown Austin. It’s a zipline tour with Cypress Valley Canopy Tours, one of the first zipline canopy tours in the U.S.

All ziplines – no matter where – work pretty much in the same manner. You don a helmet, step into a harness, and a guide clips you to a cable stretched between two trees. When the guide says go, you step off the platform and soar along the cable, pulled by gravity to the next platform. As you fly along the line, you are treated to a bird’s-eye view of the forest. When you arrive at the platform, a guide unclips you, you walk across a sky bridge to the next zipline, and repeat the process.

There are no brakes. As you slide along the cable, you pick up speed. To slow down, you pull down on the cable behind you being careful not to yank your arm out of its socket. I’ve already done four of the six ziplines here – so far, so good. I’ve walked across three sky bridges successfully (a sky bridge is a wobbly cable bridge suspended high between two trees, which moves on every step, making it much more frightening than the zipline itself).

The first three lines were not terribly adrenaline-inducing, so I asked how I could make myself go faster. “Just stick your legs out straight,” the guide said. So, on the longest line of all, I put out my legs to go faster, and find that the guide was right. I quickly pick up so much speed that I’m either going to smash into the tree or fracture my clavicle trying to brake. Miraculously, I am able to grip the cable in the correct position, and I come to a perfect stop. Proud of my successful completion, I look at the Cypress trees and the creek far below. The guide has said to be on the lookout for grey foxes, armadillos and porcupines, but I spot nothing like that. I see only a monkey: me.

Now comes the reward: I drive to the Austin Hill Hyatt Regency Lost Pines Resort and head right to Spa Django. Django translates as “I awaken,” but it’s also the name of the legendary gypsy jazz guitarist, Django Reinhardt, who heavily influenced the evolution of Texas music. I choose the signature Django Massage with Texan masseuse Bonnie Boyn John, whose magic hands pound out my knots with a combination of therapeutic and relaxing movements. At the spa, you’re allowed to pick your own music, so for a change it’s not waterfall music or Enya. I choose Texas country (what else?) but instead of kicking my heels and slapping my knee, it isn’t long before I am lulled to sleep.