Archive for the ‘Rappelling’ Category

A Marriage Consumation

Sunday, November 22nd, 2009

On Bridge Day morning in 2007, she walked out onto the catwalk completely unsuspecting that her future husband would be standing there waiting for her with a ring in his hand. TiNy Manke got on his knees, in one of their favorite places, surrounded by some of their closest friends, and asked NikKy to marry him. That is by far one of the most romantic proposals I have ever witnessed.

Tiny and Nikky - Bridge Day

Tiny and Nikky - Bridge Day

The following September, they were married during the huge caving event down in TAG (Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia) Country, and it had all the glamour and beauty one could imagine with flowing gowns, flowers and beautiful tuxes.

But, according to the newly weds, the marriage wasn’t consummated until they had rapped down and climbed back up the 700+ feet of rope during Bridge Day, 2008. Talk about your ultimate marriage ceremony.

And as for Bridge Day, 2009, the couple will be taking their usual places at each of the V-Bats rappelling stations, now a happily married couple still doing one of their favorite things, in one of their favorite places with some of their favorite people in the world.

Special Guest Post By:

Wendy Williams, 2009

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The Cat’s Meow – The Catwalk

Thursday, October 15th, 2009
The Author Wendy Williams

The Author Wendy Williams

I thought I was the cat’s meow until I walked on the catwalk and found out what the cat was meowing about.

It’s pretty cool to walk across the bridge while it’s shut down to motorized vehicles, but it’s even more cool to walk on that catwalk 800 feet above the river under the bridge.

If you get a chance to do the highline…do it. And even better, if you get a chance to be on a rappel team…do it. If it sounds exciting to ride a gradually, sloping rope about 700 feet to the ground on the highline, think about riding one about the same distance but straight down. Now that’s what I’m talkin’ about.

Special Guest Post By:

Wendy Williams, 2009

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The One-Eyed, One-Armed Rappeller

Tuesday, August 18th, 2009
phil-lilly-bd08

Phil Lilly a Bridge Day Inspiration

In 2007, Phil Lilly lost an eye, a hand and a few other body parts in a freak explosion while he was preparing chemicals for a fireworks display. It was a tragic accident that nearly took the life of him and his girlfriend.

Phil has been rappelling long ropes for some years now, and he was determined that a little thing like an eye and an arm missing would not hold him back. He worked hard during that year to fight his way back both mentally and physically. He had a goal. He was going to rappel the bridge in 2008. He practiced with his friends  at Extreme Rappels (XTR), and figured out ways to handle the long and complicated rappelling rack without fingers on one hand. He devised a system that would allow him to slow his pace or speed it up without having to move rack bars down with his fingers. Naturally, he also had to learn to balance and maneuver with only one eye.

At the XTR training session at Whitesides Mountain in the North Carolina Highlands a month before Bridge Day, he made the 600+ drop on rope, first tethered to another rappeller on the team, and eventually alone. With the exception of minor glitches, things looked pretty good, so he was set for the big day in October. Phil says he could never have made it that far without the help and moral support of all his XTR friends and teammates.

Bridge Day, 2008, arrived and Phil was put to the test. With nerves exploding and mind concentrating on the routines he had committed to muscle memory, surrounded by the team he knew he could count on, he clipped his safety to the 750-foot long rope, racked up his bars, released the safety and began to slide down the rope just as smoothly as could be imagined. He did it. He met his goal to rappel Bridge Day one year after the accident. How that is possible, I’ll never know.

I’ve told him before and I’ll say it again, he’s my hero.

Special Guest Post By:

Wendy Williams, 2009

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25 Teams Will Rappel On Bridge Day™

Saturday, June 20th, 2009

Benjy Simpson, the Bridge Day™ Rappel Coordinator, has announced that 25 teams have been selected to rappel off the New River Gorge Bridge on Bridge Day™. Bridge Day™ is Saturday, October 17.

Simpson says that, “Over three hundred rappellers will participate in rappelling off the New River Gorge Bridge this year. They will come from eighteen states, and there are two teams from Canada.”

This will be the 30th Bridge Day™ to commemorate the October 1977 completion of the New River Gorge Bridge. Bridge Day is West Virginia’s largest one day festival and is one of the Top 100 festivals in North America and Top 20 in the southeastern United States.

The New River Gorge Bridge is the 2nd longest single arch bridge in the world. It is the 2nd highest bridge in the United States. The New River Gorge Bridge is 876’ above the New River, the 2nd oldest river in the world.

Please visit www.bridgedayrappel.com for more information about the Bridge Day™ Rappel.

Benjy Simpson, Bridge Day™ Rappel Coordinator
Passages To Adventure
Post Office Box 71
Fayetteville, West Virginia 25840
304 574-1037
www.passagestoadventure.com
www.bridgedayrappel.com
Email benjy@passagestoadventure.com

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10 Alternate Names For Bridge Day

Friday, May 22nd, 2009

What’s Bridge Day?  The short answer is it’s the largest festival in West Virginia.

But it’s more than that, really.  Just saying “the largest festival…” leaves out the whole community feel of it.  The tradition.  The adrenaline.

Maybe if there were some more names for it, it would help describe everything that goes down…

  • “Y’all Are Crazy” Day- The big draw, of course, is BASE jumping off the New River Gorge Bridge.  If you don’t know, BASE is parachuting from a fixed object- in this case, a bridge.  A spectacle.
  • “I Can’t Eat Any More… Well, Okay” Day If there’s one thing you’ll find everywhere at Bridge Day, it’s food.  From the Pancake Breakfast in the morning to the Chili Cookoff that night, (and all day long, too) there’s plenty of grub.
  • “This Place Is Awesome” Day When you see the big crowd, and the jumpers, and the rafters and kayakers below, and the fall colors, all from this engineering marvel of a bridge, this is exactly what you’ll think.  Promise.
  • “I Do Need Some Art” Day We’re lucky to have some of the most talented artisans in the state come and set up shop.  Almost anywhere you go on Bridge day, there’s great art for browsing and for sale.
  • “We Need To Stay Another Day” Day There is no way to do everything you’d like to do in the New River Gorge in a day.  Rock climbing, mountain biking, horseback riding, fishing, ATVs, paintball, rafting, kayaking, and on and on.  Sorry about that.
  • “I Should Get A Motorcycle” Day It probably helps that Weest Virginia has more CRPC  (Curvy Roads Per Capita) than any other state.  Whatever it is, Bridge Day draws tons of bikes.
  • “I’ve Got To Show My Friends This” Day This year -the 30th anniversary- Bridge Day is full connected, online, and mobile. Text bd30 to 77007 to find out everything, and tag the stuff you share with #bridgeday or #bd30.
  • “I Could Get Used To This” Day The New River Gorge is the world’s greatest backyard, basically.  People move to this part of the Mountain State to turn life into serious play.
  • “Fat Guy With A Funnel Cake” Day Self-explanitory.
  • “We’re Definitely Doing This Again Next Year” Day If we renamed the festival after the phrase most often overhead at Bridge Day, this would be it.

It’s a lot of things.  More than anything, it’s fun.  And who are we to try to define fun, anyway?  We’ll just stick with Bridge Day.

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