Ever since reading about River Riders, an outdoor adventure company in Harpers Ferry, I’ve been wanting to go and play. I’ve known about their zip lines for some time now, and was excited to hear that my Navy Academy graduate Jessica, who is now a Marine, was coming to Maryland for a visit.

So I had the perfect playmate to go out to River Riders. When looking at their website, I discovered that they had just opened up a new Adventure Park. This challenge course with 60 obstacles officially opened on Memorial weekend. The Adventure Course at River Riders is an “Aerial Forest Adventure Park” with obstacles that weave in and out of the tree canopy. These challenge courses are very popular in Europe, while there are only 20 at this time in the United States.

This would be my third challenge course that I would be visiting. The first being Terrapin Adventures at Savage Mill, Maryland, where I took my first Leap of Faith. The second challenge course was at the Alligator Farm and Zoological Park in St. Augustine, Florida. Crocodile Crossing has their challenge course over alligator pits at the zoo, and My Adventure was wonderful.

So by now I felt I had conquered my fear of heights, particularly since I had just hiked the Inca Trail with precarious cliff edges off the side of the mountain. When reviewing the website for our adventure, their on-line reservation system needs some improvement. Calling into their reservation center at (800) 326-7238  proved to be a good experience. It was requested that we arrive an hour early to check-in and prepare for our adventure.

After being fully harnessed into the brand-new Edelrid equipment I was already impressed with the professionalism and ease the course guides portrayed. This new harness system offers shoulder straps, which encouraged confidence in the safety system. While I had brought my gloves, afterwards I wish I had brought a regular set of gloves. They do provide gloves for hand protection which is a must.

The Edelrid Belay Smart System is at first a little difficult to get accustomed to, but it is a brilliant and extra careful safety system. Only one carabiner can be open at a time, ensuring that course participants are locked into a safety cable at all times. Here are my safety lines, I came to rely on them heavily throughout the course.

“The Park consists of 5 Aerial Forest Challenge Trails of approximately 12 elements each totalling 60 challenges and zip lines.” Each course is progressively more difficult starting with Yellow “Canary Lane”, Two Green “Crow’s Nest” and “Woody’s Wander”, One Blue “Blue Jay Crossing” and the final Black “Condor’s Cage” trail.

By marking your wrist band to prove your progression through the levels of difficulty, you start with the yellow Canary’s Lane, then continue on through the green, blue and black trails in specific order.

Along Canary Lane

On the Blue Jay Trail

A challenge right up my alley ! Get in the saddle!

Upon starting, we did fairly well, but once we reached the blue level and started on the Blue Jay trail, it was clear that this was to be both a physical and mentally challenging day. While we thought the Blue Jay trail was hard, we had no idea until we started the Condors Cage trail just what we had gotten ourselves into.

There is one obstacle that you grab a rope and fly through the air like Tarzan. There is a rope net that you land into which is climbed to reach the platform. I flew through the air beautifully, but twisted around and landed in the net with my back. Which was wonderful, but then I started to sail back towards the middle of the line. Now that wasn’t good! I managed to twist back around and return to the net, grabbing it the best way that I could.

This obstacle, was by far, the most difficult. After struggling across, we turned around and watch our guide Nick use his zip line pulley to cross. NOT FAIR !

This was the one obstacle where I had met my match. There was no way I’d be able to place my feet on these little round circles. The next strategy was to grab the middle line and sail across the two platforms. I just couldn’t convince myself that my grip was strong enough to hold me. So I chickened out and used the Zip Line Cheat to cross the short cable.

I tried my best not to look down as we were quite high. I just concentrated on the obstacle that was in front of me. But here is a glimpse of what it was like to look down. Yep, we were pretty high.

While the courses are self-guided, they have course guides on the ground to watch and coach you through the elements. We had several wonderfully professional and energetic guides. Nick was kind enough to stay with us through three trails and even joined us on the black Condor Cage trail.

I had expected for the course to be full with guests as this was the second weekend open. The weather was perfect with low humidity and mild temperatures. A picture perfect day for traversing the course. But surprisingly, we had the course to ourselves. There were only five other people that morning on the course. However, my friend and I were the first ones to complete the five-trail course in the three hour time limit. And also the first all-girl team to complete the full course!

The Adventure Park at River Riders in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia is by far the most difficult and challenging course that I have been on so far. The staff are highly professional and well trained and made our visit truly pleasurable. If you’re looking for an exciting and challenging day, look no further!