Cheerleader Calendar Shoot: Zip Line

Hey Fans!!!

WOW!!!! Our trip to Vail for our 2012 Calendar has been a blast! It couldn’t be a more perfect place to shoot a calendar that really represents our beautiful state of Colorado.

After a busy first 2 days of shoots, we decided to take a break and have a little fun as a team. What better activity is there for this than zip lining?! We all packed into four cars, and made our way to 4-Eagle Ranch in Wolcott, Colorado (a little town about 30 minutes west of Vail) where Zip Adventures of Vail is based. This ranch is one of the most beautiful places I have ever been. There is a display of old cabins and rustic ranch equipment which are carefully placed around the ranch, stunning views of fields and mountains (including the New York Mountains), and a variety of critters that live there- horses, pigs, alpaca, donkeys, chickens, goats, a buffalo, dogs, and barn cats. (We end up taking a couple of our photos there on Day 4 which turned out to be incredible- check them out!) Once we arrived, we signed our waivers and harnessed up!

The guides took us out to the course in a 1973 Pinzgauer, which is a 6 x 6, 12 person military troop transporter that was made for the Swiss Alps.

The course consists of a total of six zip lines. The first five lines string back and forth across the canyon becoming faster, longer, and higher as you progress. The sixth zip line takes you from the end of the course, all the way back to the beginning by going through the canyon. The highest zip line is 200 feet above the canyon floor, the fastest zip gets up to 35 mph, and the longest is about 1000 feet long! It’s a ton of fun!!!!

My favorite part about our zip line adventure was the tandem zips that we did! There are a couple of zip lines that allowed us to partner up and zip together. I have never ‘giggled’ so much in my life! I was partnered up with Becky and we couldn’t stop laughing the whole way…. SOOO FUN! (Even the guides were making fun of us for laughing so much!)

A couple of the girls were really fun to watch: Margaret was doing all sorts of acrobatic moves in the middle of the canyon. She was quite the dare-devil! Lelanna and Jess were very nervous at first (you could tell by the look on their faces as they walked up to the first zip), but they did it and had a blast! Michelle, who zipped last year at Zip Adventures, was now working on her steering skills… I think she finally managed that by the third zip! Becky was not only practicing her high kicks in mid air, but she was also able to fit her ab workout in during her trip across the canyon.

Once we all finished, the guides drove us back to the ranch where we unharnessed. It couldn’t have been a more perfect afternoon. I think our pictures show that!!! It was definitely one of the highlights of my trip.

Thank you to Zip Adventures of Vail, and thank you to our AMAZING guides- Andreas, Kyle, Kyle, and Brian!!