The Severed Cortex

It's another day in paradise especially now that the sunburn is less painful. Today's adventure is going to be the Piiholo Ranch zip lines. Ever since I saw the zip line thing online I totally wanted to do it. Nancy thought it was kind of silly, but in the end she agreed to do so.
We head back down to Lahaina for breakfast (since we have to drive that way anyway), this time stopping on the North end of Front Street at Longhi's. By this time we have figured out that everything is expensive in Hawaii and Longhi's is definitely no exception, but on the other hand Longhi's is totally worth it. The coffee rocked. I had strawberry pancakes and bacon cooked perfectly. Nancy had fresh pineapple and crabcake eggs benedict. I even ate some of the pineapple and it was incredibly good.
Fifty plus dollars lighter, we fire up the GPS and head to Makawao, detouring in Kahului for some more Starbucks. Hey, you can take the boy out of the mainland, but you can't take the mainland out of the boy. Nancy forgets to tell them not to sweeten her ice coffee and in the land of sugar cane that's the equivalent of asking for unsweetened tea south of Memphis. Piiholo Ranch is not listed in my very low budget GPS and we make a slight error in finding the place. Luckily we regroup and find our destination in plenty of time. Piiholo, as it turns out, is really an 800 acre working cattle ranch. Part of the area is reserved for the zip lines. From the base camp we can see the biggest zip line which is 2800 feet long. Yes, that's right; more than a 1/2 mile long. It starts way the hell up on top of a hill. I start to wonder what I've gotten us into.
At 10:30 they start the safety briefing and we gear up with our trolleys and modified paragliding harnesses. There are four other couples besides us, only one of which had zip lined in Majorca, Spain. After a description of how to slow yourself down (starfish your body), at 11:00 sharp we are set for the first run. Nancy had never done anything like this before. My only experience with this was a hokey one that went through the woods for about 200 feet at church camp. On that one there were no safety measures. You just held on with your hands gliding about 8 feet off the ground. Comparatively that would have been high school baseball. Piiholo zip lines are definitely the major leagues.
I have to admit I was moderately nervous to start with, but after the first run, a 600 foot ride over flat ground, it seemed like no big deal. The second run was 1100 feet long across a gorge that was maybe 100 feet deep. A little more scary but still not too bad. The third run was only 900 feet long, but it was over a portion of the gorge about 200 feet deep. It also had more of a downward slope to it and was a little faster. You wind up landing on a platform that is built into the side of the ravine which is kind of cool. By now, you can start to see the pattern of building you up for the final run. Run number four was 1400 feet in length and it spanned the gorge at a similar 200 foot level. It might be a little deeper than run number three but not by much. Then there was zip run number five which is in a class all to itself. For the granddaddy of them all we had to ride an ATV to the top of a very tall hill overlooking the ranch. Twenty-eight hundred feet away, across the gorge at about a 600 foot level, was the other end of this monster. It takes almost a full minute to to make the whole run and it is, how shall I say, totally freaking awesome. I probably forgot to mention that all the runs can be done in tandem. Not on the same zip line, of course; each run has two zip lines side by side except the first run which has four. Nancy started this last run a couple seconds in front of me and she starfished the whole way so she could take in the view. I made my body as wind resistant as possible and whizzed by her about 2/3 of the way down, saying C'ya as I passed. We both had shit eating grins on our faces and would have done the whole thing over again right then and there. I say that even though it was extremely expensive to have this kind of fun. I understand Nancy's point about zip lining prior to us signing up. e.g. - it happens so fast that you don't get to enjoy the scenery. However, I think even she would agree that the adrenaline rush far outweighs any negative, including the price.
Our two backstops, Brian and Nicole, were excellent and our sender Chris was top notch. While we all cut up and had a great time, these guys are extra careful and extra cautious with the safety measures. This is a first class outfit with top of the line zips, top of the line safety, outstanding professionalism, and an understanding of how to have some slightly dangerous fun without compromising the safety of its customers. I highly, highly recommend zip lining and I definitely recommend Piiholo Ranch. We tipped the crew $40 for the experience.
After zip lining we headed back up to Pai'a to check out the shops. Pai'a is only a couple miles away from downtown Makawao. I got some postcards and Nancy picked up a nice silk dress. We would have hung out longer but it was very hot. We did manage to duck into Mana Foods to get a cold drink. Turns out that Mana Foods is extremely hippie-fied and it has some gentrified prices. It was almost $10.00 for a gallon of milk and $5.69 for a dozen organic eggs. Way, way too expensive and looking at these prices for staples made me realize that my dream of living on Maui would never work.
We made it back to the hotel for a much needed shower, then headed back into Lahaina for some food. We both wanted Mexican and we found a place called Cilantro that fit the bill. It's sort of like a Qdoba but with a bigger menu and much better food. I got the mother clucker flautas which made me fart like a mule and belch like a Shanghai chimney. More totally awesomeness! Most importantly it was a little bit cheaper than the rest of the places that we dined during the trip.
We made it back to the hotel to do the dreaded packing. By 10:00 we were done and in bed, which sounds early, but really wasn't. Why wasn't that early enough? Because tomorrow's adventure starts really, really early. Like about 4 hours from now.

Some pics from the day (these are nowhere near spectacular like yesterday's pics):
A look ahead to what we have agreed to do (look for the orange balls in the middle of the pic then follow the zip lines up to the start tower on the hill)
Chris guides us to start the trip
Start tower for zip line run #2
A look at zip lines and the gorge from landing area #3
Nancy and I prepare for the big 2800 foot run
A look back up at where we started
The trek across the suspension bridge after it is over

I probably shouldn't link to this video but I will. Despite the fact that they asked us to not take pictures or video while on the zip lines, and they specifically said they didn't want to see this stuff on YouTube, it does show you how cool this stuff is. The videographer says he puts it in his pocket to prepare for the landing because he needed his hands, but the real reason is that he didn't want to get caught doing it when they explicitly said not to. You do not need your hands to stop, unless they give you the signal to starfish in order to slow down. Even then you don't have to hold onto anything. You do need your hands once they bring you down on the ladders but that's after you are completely stopped. I will say that if you have a dSLR camera and you can wear it on a strap over your neck, they do allow you to do that. From that perspective you could shoot the ride, but dSLR video is a pretty new thing.
I do have some video of other people in our group doing the zips and I have one of our guide doing the big zip. His approach at the end is kind of funny. If enough people bug me about it I will post it to you tube. In the meantime, if you want already uploaded video, search for Piiholo on You Tube for several vids. Mine are really no different than these.