The Day I Jumped off a Mountain.

For young people who spend their holidays looking for adventures on white water or leaping off bridges attached to an elastic band, my jumping off a mountain will seem tame. But, in general, I prefer to keep my adrenalin under control. The most alarming thing I do deliberately, here in Nepal, is cross the road in Kathmandu. That is enough excitement for one day.

Do why did I jump off the mountain on a zip line?   It looked fun ... is that good enough?

Nerves began to breed as I filled in the disclaimer form. Who is my emergency contact? (Oh Emergency Contact people, do you need to know I’m doing this?) Provide the details of your travel insurance. (Does my ‘no dangerous sports’ exclude a zip line?). 

Then, please, sit, the jeep will come for you soon. Watch the video ... of people launching into nothingness ... But still I didn’t say, I’m sorry, I’ve changed my mind. Even though my stomach was so full of butterflies by then it had clearly decided that this was a Bad Idea.

The jeep to the top of Sarangkot takes about 45 minutes. The driver knew every bend and pothole, and paid only fleeting attention to anything coming the other way. With every metre we climbed, I knew I was going to come down it much, much faster.  

We stopped,, eventually, and I had a five minute climb up sandy steps, stopping twice along the way to ‘look at the view’ (catch my breath). Everything was getting a bit surreal. The cloud was thin up here; the valley looked slightly muffled. Paragliders circled the mountaintop. Kites flew high on the thermals. An eagle flew across the hillside just below me.  

I was led to a metal platform and strapped into a canvas seat, my feet pressed against a metal gate. I was beyond thinking by then. A man with a huge smile gave me the same instructions five times, presumably in the hope that they would, at some point, go in. Pull this rope if you see a yellow flag and that rope if you get stuck. Neither of which was reassuring.

And then, the gate had gone and I was on my way down the mountain. 

It was BRILLIANT!

For two minutes I dropped 600m over 1.8km. But the statistics don’t tell you how it feels. There is little sensation of speed - rather the sense of rushing through a resistant wind (the wind did make me sway a bit). My eyes watered but I didn’t care. The forest drifted by beneath me, thick and green. Beyond the forest, the river - with its sandy shoreline and women washing in the glacial water - and on I flew till, oh no, I could see the landing site. I wanted this to go on forever. 

But there was a man waving a yellow flag and, miraculously, I yanked the right rope and my hurtling journey eased to a stop and I was pulled in to a small concrete platform where I was unbuckled and bounced off to greet the friend who had taken pictures. 

So here I am, swinging high across the valley. I know it’s not elegant, but believe me - this was magic.