RSS feed
Making Our Zipline Zippier
We have an approximately 70 foot zipline in our yard that we’ve been playing with a lot lately. To make it even more fun, we’ve recently added a ramp at the far end and a step at the beginning plus platforms at both ends, handles to climb up onto the first platform, and a fishing reel at the beginning to reel the zipline’s trolley handle back to the beginning for the next person (or yourself again) — we thought this was a clever way for us vegans to use a fishing pole we had from before we went vegan. These improvements have been great!
With my “Pretending to be Indiana Jones PART TWO” article about our zipline, I had a few concerned readers. They were afraid that something like this is too dangerous for humans to use. I understand and appreciate the concern. However, just about everything in life can cause danger. But, it is important to live a bit! I am a very safety-conscious mother — much more so than most other mothers I know, yet I have no qualms about my kids using this zipline since I know that it is well built. Ziplines can be relatively safe toys and ours is a great way for my family to be physically active and have fun together (building it has been an excellent Unschooling project). Many other outdoor play toys are more dangerous (e.g. swimming pools and trampolines and even bicycles and scooters) — not that I am against these, because I am not. The worst that could happen on our zip line is that someone could fall and possible break a bone — an adult could stand/walk the entire seventy feet if necessary, so it isn’t very far off the ground. Since the ride is so short, the chances of this happening are quite slim. It is more likely they would get a splinter from the wood, or walk into a cactus on the way there. We’ve also made precautions so that any person shorter than 4’3″ or so isn’t able to use the zipline without help.
Here are a few photographs of our improvements to our zipline. We have a bunch more ideas in the works for additional improvements and add-ons!
Related Articles:
- Pretending to be Indiana Jones PART TWO
- Top 10: Favorite Reasons I’m Glad I Started this Blog
- Making the Most of What Isn’t
- How can I persuade you?
- Happy Solstice!
