China Day 12

Today we got up and watched the priesthood session of conference.  It was the only session that was on during the day while we were in China.  Then we went to a Via Ferrata.  Then we rode electric scooters to some very old bridges and explored the beautiful country side.

 A via ferrata is a  protected mountain pathway consisting of a series of rungs, rails, cables and bridges embracing the rock face.  Kirt really wanted to do this.  Unfortunately, they told him he weighed too much.  They don't meet any 6'6" people in China.  He told the kids and I to still do it, and he stayed down and took pictures.  The kids loved it.  I survived. I thought it was really scary.  My legs were shaking so badly at the beginning that I thought it was going to make me fall.  

View of the entire course.

We started by walking across a wire.

 Then we had to climb a ladder.

 Then we had to walk sideways across the mountain steeping from rung to rung.  I don't know why this scared me so much, but this was the scariest part to me.  It didn't help that I couldn't get my guide clip to slide through the support that was anchored to the wall.  They made it so that the anchors were all in different positions so you had to turn your guide clip all different ways to get it to slide through.  Garret struggled with it the whole time.  The nice Chinese girl behind him thankfully helped him out a ton.

 Then we had to slide across another wire.  This one was much higher than the last one.

 Then another ladder.  You had to get off the ladder half way and change the way you were climbing up it. At the beginning you had your back to the mountain, then you had to step on the platform and face the mountain.

 Then walk across this very shaky bridge.

 Then walk around this arch.

 Then there were 2 zip lines to get us down.  They were fun except for the fact that they had no gloves for us to brake with or no block to slow us down at the end so I hit the mat pretty hard.  That's why they told Kirt he couldn't go.  They were afraid he would come in too fast on the zip line.  I came in really fast so he definitely would have hit the mat pretty hard.

 The electric scooters. Garret and I rode one, and Kirt and Katie rode one.  At the end of the day, we let Katie and Garret ride them on their own.  

 The Old Dragon Bridge and views from the bridge. The bridge is over 1000 years old.

 Fuli Bridge and views from the bridge.

 Garret went swimming in the river.  There were no signs that said he couldn't swim.  All of the Chinese people around thought it was awesome and were taking pictures of him swimming.

 Dinner back at the hotel. They had the best fried dumplings.  We had to get 2 plates our last night.

 Picture of the outside of our hotel.