Ziplining at Jungle Raider Park Xtreme near Lake Como in Lombardy, Italy was unlike anything I’ve ever done! I loved its uniqueness and surprises and know adventure junkies will too!
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There are seven ziplines! The longest of which is an incredible 250 m long! Two of them are very cool surprise ziplines – more on those later AND you’ll also have a chance to test your Spiderman or Spiderwoman skills! This is perfect for family trips too!
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Jungle Raider Park Xtreme Ziplining
We arrived 30 minutes early at Jungle Raider Park Xtreme, the largest Lake Como adventure park in Lombardy, to get fitted for our gear – a safety harness with various safety contraptions, a hairnet, and a helmet.
I admire the attention to safety.
It ain’t sexy, but it is safe!
You’ll want to wear comfortable clothes and I recommend a longer shirt since your harness will make it ride up when you’re ziplining.
There’s no warm-up zipline at this extreme adventure park. You dive straight into the deep end, or fly in this case! The first of the seven ziplines is the MAXI Cableway, 130 m long AND 40 m high…over a ravine! Just looking at it gave me butterflies which only intensified as I waited my turn.
So to distract myself I focused on all the stunning views of nature and hyped myself up with more spectacular views I would see as I zip line.
I took a deep breath and then I was off. It’s incredible how fast, and yet how slow time flies (pun intended) on a zipline. I loved every second of it! I was hooked and couldn’t wait for more.
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A Special Twist To Ziplining
Many of the ziplines had panoramic views and a unique feature that I had never seen before – nets! This is where you get to test your spidey skills. Climbing down the nets was relatively easy, once you got your rhythm. But you learn not to get cocky very quickly – it will come back to bite you, as I soon learned!
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There are also high ropes challenges. The one below started off easy, but then about two-thirds of the way across, I suddenly got really shaky and it becomes much harder. This is the kind of stuff that gets me excited!
Just when you’re feeling confident, and ready to take on the world, you’re offered your next challenge. This is the adventure of all zipline adventures! The question is, will you accept it? Out of our group of 10, only 2 of us did!
It’s the Zipline Bungee!
I’ve never seen anything like it before! You’re hooked up to a long bungee cord, and then free fall 25 meters into a ravine and then bounce your way up and down a 50-meter long cable! As I stepped onto the plank, I felt like a pirate being order to walk the plank. The only difference was that I wasn’t being ordered to it, I was willingly doing it…or was I?
As with so many things in life, the first step – especially when it’s into thin air, is the hardest!
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I-Caramba! Despite feeling like my stomach was in the bottom of the ravine, I took that step, that leap that would propel me 25 meters below, then just as quickly jerk me up again. There’s adrenalin, then there’s adrenalin.
It’s synonymous for big steps that you take in life. You can’t expect great rewards without doing things that scare the sh*t out of you!
Climbing A Spider Net
But my adventures were far from over. In fact, there were two more BIG ones waiting for me as part of this course. The next one would prove the most physically challenging – a large spider net. Unlike the other ones that you had to climb down, on this one, you had to climb across.
Trust me, it’s a lot harder than it looks! My adrenalin was still pumping from the Zipline Bungee and I started out of breath – not the best way to begin any physical activity. I reached one arm, then one leg to propel myself forward across a shaky net. It was stable (i.e. safe) but moved to make it even more challenging. I slowly worked my way across, both arms and legs shaking, breathing heavy, stopping for several breaks out of the way, from the pure exhaustion of it.
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High Rope Adventures
I arrived at the next platform, for the next challenge, one which I knew from previous high ropes courses, would be a challenge – the Ravine Bridge. Now, to be clear, it’s not a bridge. Not in the slightest! It’s a tiny cable that you walk across while pushing on another higher cable to balance yourself.
The only way to get across without falling is to block everything else out and just focus one shaky step at a time. Although the rest of my group was watching me, and shouting words of encouragement. I saw nothing, only the tree that I fixated on. I heard nothing. Shuffling one foot slowly at a time, ignoring the plea from my arms to quit, as I crossed the 30-meter long cable until I reached the platform!
If I can get across a tiny cable just by really focusing, imagine what else I could accomplish in other areas of my life with that same intense focus?
While my adventure was over, for others it was just heating up again. Some of our group had opted to do the Vertical CableCar, a vertical zip line that drops into a ravine where you reach speeds of up to 50km per hour! I wasn’t able to do this one, as we were short on time, but Paul from TravMonkey reports;
The vertical zip line’s initial drop provided a proper stomach-churning feeling before it really picked up full speed. Zooming towards the bottom, with the finish line in sight, your speed doesn’t decrease and makes you wonder whether you’re just flying straight into a tree trunk!
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And isn’t that the ultimate adventure – challenging yourself to new highs, and lows in the case of the zipline bungee and speeds?
Know Before You Visit Jungle Raider Park Xtreme:
- I did the Xtreme course, but they also have a Family course, which is suitable for children weighing 40kg+.
- It costs €30 for adults, or €25 if you have a group of 4 or more adults.
- The entire Xtreme course takes ~ 2 hours and you need to be there 30 minutes early to get your gear.
- The staff is very helpful and encouraging.
- Reservations are required.
- For further info or to make a reservation visit the Jungle Raider Park Xtreme website. (Note: The site is only in Italian, so you’ll have to use Google Translate.)
- If that’s too much adventure for you, then may I suggest a lovely boat ride to Como, followed by a short walk in the village of Brunate to watch the sunset?
- Also, check out Simon’s 9 Reasons You Should Visit Lombardy.
Note: My trip to Lake Como was made possible via the #inLombardia365 project planned by iAmbassador and the Lombardia Tourism Board. As always, all opinions are my own.
