Taking It to the X-Tremes
Northern Ohio
Best Driving Vacations
4Th Annual 2001 Edition
By Terry Troy
Some call it the need for speed. For Others, it’s the adrenaline rush of stepping out of an airplane at 10,000 feet, or that tight knot in the stomach that comes from staring down and defeating an eight-foot hydraulic wave in a swirling mass of angry whitewater.
For many Northern Ohioans, vacation has become much more than a chance to relax. Today, many people see time off as a chance to test their endurance, strength, courage and guts. From climbing vertical rock faces to diving the wrecks in Lake Erie, people are creating their own adventures, right here in their own backyards. Members of the American Sedentary Society need not apply; these vacations are strictly for the adventurous.
If we’ve slaked your thirst for adventure, just remember-some of the activities here will push you to your limits. If getting a good physical workout is as important as getting a thrill, try rock climbing.
There are excellent climbing sites within an easy day’s drive. One is the New River Gorge National Park (304/465-0508), in West Virginia. In fact, the New River Gorge is famous for some of the best rock climbing in the eastern United States. "For a beginner, the New River Gorge can be a bit intimidating," cautions Petche. "It’s always best to start out here and develop some skills before heading down there."
Climbing instruction is available for beginners and advanced students at the New River Gorge’s ACE Adventure Center (www.aceraft.com; 888/ACE-RAFT). The Center offers professional guides and equipment, and with 1,600 unique routes, hundreds of hidden crags and abundance of boulder fields, there’s plenty of terrain.
"We have climbing and rappelling classes for just about everybody, "says ACE VP. Ernie Kincaid. " And these classes and tours can be tied into other instruction or adventures such as whitewater rafting, kayaking, wild caving or mountain biking."
One-Stop Adventure Shop
The ACE Adventure Center also has more than twenty-five miles of mountain bike trails that connect the New River Gorge National Park’s trail system.
"One of the best runs in the area is the Minden to Thurmond Trail," Steward says. "It starts on a slight incline and heads down to the river on a slight grade. Thurmond’s an old railroad town with a museum. It’s very historical."
There are trails for family rides that snake around ponds and waterfalls and single-track advanced trails for the more adventuresome. You can take a guided tour, rent a bike on-site, or get a map and head out on your own.
ACE also offers guided caving tours through some of the country’s wildest subterranean limestone caverns-an amazing maze of tunnels and rock formations millions of years old.
While mountain biking and caving are excellent diversions, the real reason to visit the New River Gorge is the whitewater of either the New River-excellent for spring and summer runs-or the Gauley River,
which is excellent for tight runs in inflatable "duckies" in summer and roaring wild whitewater during the fall.
And if you want to see some really extreme sports, there’s the BASE-jumping from the New River Gorge Bridge.
Usually slated for the third weekend in September, Bridge Day BASE Jumping is something you have to see to believe. BASE-Buildings, Antennae, Span and Earth-jumpers parachute from the 860-foot New River Gorge span with only seconds to deploy their chutes before hitting either terra firma or water.
A word of caution: Don’t even think about jumping from the New River Gorge Bridge unless you have had instruction. You also need gear specifically designed for BASE Jumping.
And, last but not least, the latest in X sports: Zorbing. Since first appearing on "Road Rules" on MTV, the New Zealand
inventors of the Zorb have been flooded with requests to bring the inflatable device to the United States. A Zorb is an inflatable, human-sized hamster ball. It can be used to roll down a hill, traverse whitewater rapids and bounce around waves on a lake.
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