For some reason, one of the most popular activities at our camp was the zipline. It was a simple set-up, there was a steel cable that ran across the lake and a bar attached to a trolley that ran along the steel cable. Scouts would climb up to an elevated platform about 10 feet high, grab onto the bar and start sliding down the cable. At some point your ride would come to an end, either by letting go, or the bar got low enough so that your lower half of the body was in the water. Once the scout let go, there was a rope attached to the trolley and the next scout had to pull the zip line back for his turn. If you were tasked with running the zip line that day, you simply stood on the platform and were there to jump in the water if someone had trouble swimming.
There were a number of different strategies. First, you had the older athletic kids that could actually do a backflip off the bar. They would usually let go pretty early so that they had sufficient height. The main group simply cruised down and would let go at various intervals. There was always at least one kid who always wanted to ride the zip line to the end, his lower half of the body would be in the water and he would hang onto the bar for 30 seconds as all the other scouts would yell at him to let go. Eventually he would, and he would repeat the pattern each time. I imagine he probably got beat up a lot. Then you had the chunky kids. These guys couldn't quite hold their body weight, so almost as soon as their feet left the platform they simply fell. They would never admit that they fell, telling their friends that they liked the big drop, but every single time they went it was a very abrubt fall as gravity overwhelmed them.
The staff would often pull various antics at the zip line, the most common riding the zipline in full uniform, there was a fair amount of nude ziplining in the evenings. The thing about the nude ziplining is that it was almost always 100% male, just a bunch of young guys stripping down and getting naked with each other. Every so often a feminina would be up for it, that always led to an extremely well attended event. One particular event involved a young lady named Ruth. Ruth was dark skinned, possibly Indian and was particularly busty. She was quite a character, she was there for only one summer, but was instrumental in keeping morale high across the camp. She was probably in her early 20s, and greatly enjoyed being one of the few females on the staff. She was not ugly by any stretch, but you would have thought she was a super model the way everyone chased her. Fortunately, you didn't have to put much effort into the chase. In fact, she took a liking to a young man of 15. However, it quickly ran its course and from that point on we referred to him as Ruth-less. Interestingly, on the night of the co-ed nude zipline event, she backed out a bit and decided to go down in her underwear and a white t-shirt. Needless to say every run after the first became quite a bit more revealing!
The only time I ever had to do any sort of rescue was an unusual one. Our camp director that year had a young son, probably about 2 years old or so. His son and his wife lived on the camp that summer. The zip line pond is entirely man made and is drained every summer. Consequently, there is a large concrete retaining wall that you walk along to get to the platform. The top of the retaining wall is probably about 18 inches higher than the surface of the water. I happened to be on duty and about midway through the shift, our director's wife and young son came walking along. It all happened so quickly, so I am unsure about the exact sequence of events, but the toddler all of a sudden ended up in the water. He was not a trained swimmer. However, he was the calmest one there, his mother was justifiably panicked. I was all set to go all baywatch like and jump in from the top of the tower, when one of the fathers was able to reach out and pull him to the shore. The best part was that the little tyke's only complaint was that his feet had gotten wet!
The zipline is a Summit Base fixture, a lot of things have changed up at camp, but I think the zipline will always be there.
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