Wowie, Zowie, We Made It To Maui!: Rappelling

We booked a trip with "Rappel Maui" so that we could rappell down some cliffs and waterfalls. We were taken to an area named "Garden of Eden" by a couple of men who were fireman for 20+ years and/or had been Canyoneers/Rappellers for most of their lives. Something that worked to our advantage was that one of our co-adventurer's was a travel guide author; so I'm sure that influenced our guides to be even more conscientious about making sure we had a great and safe experience. The author's name is Kile Ellison; he gave us a copy of his book after the trip. He's the guy on the left. The other guy (in the red hat) is Josh from Boston, and his sister Rachel (blue sunglasses). They were all very nice people to be around for 3 to 4 hours.

Aubrie was the first to go over the cliff. She looked like an old pro on her way down.

She made it without any incident.

Brad took the stage next, and also made his way down the cliff like he had done it before.

He said afterwards that there was one point on his descent where he got scraped a little bit.

Mama wouldn't watch her babies go over the edge, but that didn't stop her from going herself.

She didn't get a single scrape!

More Maui Owies!

So after the "Dry Run" with the cliff, we started doing the waterfalls. It's hard to see in these pictures from the beginning of the descent, but this was VERY high, and VERY scary! Brad was the first to go, if you can, zoom in on Katie's face, the kids were cracking up when they looked at this pic later that night, saying she looked like a "sad little Katie"...

Brad made it down in good shape, but he did give himself a little scare when he temporarily up-ended himself. Guides said he made a good recovery. I was just thankful he didn't let go of the rope while he was upside down!

There goes Mom!

And there goes Aubs!

No Fear!(?)

Here's a good shot of Kile (who came down this waterfall last) from the "Pool Side". It gives you a much better sense of the magnitude of this rappell!

So below we have wife and daughter safely on the shore while Kile finishes up. Swimming across that pool was harder than it looks too! The water was very cold, about 65 degrees, so it really took the breath out of you when you hit it. I was already out of breath anyway from the exhilaration of the descent!