Feeling frisky this spring? Then grab a friend (or two) and head out to nurture your inner adventurer. Several area businesses offer hair-raising fun, and fodder for great stories that you’ll enjoy sharing for years to come.

Take a Chopper Tour

Alamo Helicopter Tours owners Randy Riggs, a pilot, and his wife, Stacy, a commercial photographer, met on a job 20 years ago. Stacy says riding in a helicopter with her husband has not lost its allure. “Every time you go up, the weather is different, so the view is forever evolving.”

Riggs is not the only one who sees the romantic appeal of helicopter riding. “We’re thanking the TV show The Bachelor,” she says, laughing. “It featured helicopter rides twice, and we were inundated with calls!”

At an altitude of 1,000 feet and an average cruising speed of 120 mph, Riggs says the sensation of riding in a helicopter is “like Aladdin on a magic carpet, soaring through the air, floating between sites,” which include the Riverwalk, the Alamo, the historic missions, and the Hill Country. A limited number of night flights are offered on special occasions, when “people like to think outside the box,” Riggs says.

For the truly adventurous, who want to go beyond just a tour to some actual “stick time,” as Riggs calls it, there is the Discovery Flight, when participants take the controls.  Proving that helicopter flying is not just for the boys anymore, the Riggs recently hired pilot Molly Arrington. Meanwhile, Riggs’ 12-year old daughter, Rebecca, is already learning the basics and looks set to carry on the family tradition.

Grab a Parachute

“A lot of people expect that roller-coaster feeling in their stomachs,” says Theresa Davignon, the Tandem Mistress at Sky Dive San Marcos, “but it’s more of a slow acceleration, relatively speaking. There is a sense of weightlessness. When the parachute deploys, you feel like you’re flying.”

Tandem jumps are usually made from a height of about 11,000 feet and last four to seven minutes from the time you leave the plane until you touch the ground, with the average jump lasting about five minutes.

Davignon, who has made over 2,100 jumps and is rated by the United States Parachute Association, is one of the few active female Tandem Masters in the country. Although Sky Dive San Marcos does not require participants to make tandem jumps, those wishing to jump solo must complete a one-day, intensive Accelerated Free Fall course.

Davignon says the best and worst part of skydiving is walking to the door of the airplane, but that ,once you jump, the fear goes away. “[Skydivers] say, fear is too slow; you outrun it.”

Paul and Jen Illingworth, owners of Sky Dive San Marcos, have a lot of women book dives to celebrate their birthdays—particularly their fiftieth.

“You don’t have to be adventurous,” claims Davignon, who, on a scale of one to 10, rates skydiving as a 100. “You just have to want the experience.” 

Zip Along a Zipline

Hoping to recreate for others the “full body experience that opened a new doorway to my relationship with nature,” founder David Beilharz and his wife, Amy, have established Cypress Valley Canopy Tours. It’s a one-of-a-kind, eco-adventure that enables guests to observe nature from the unique vantage point of a zipline and to participate in a variety of ways, including the Canopy Tour, the more difficult Canopy Challenge, and the Sunrise Birding Tour.

Soaring through the trees at over 20-miles per hour does not create that “stomach drop” sensation of a roller coaster, says Course Manager Amy King, who holds a master’s degree in environmental geography. “I relate it more to a gliding motion.”

Female participants have different motivations for booking tours; some do it as a way to conquer their fears, and others use it as a bonding experience. “Each November, we have a biker group of 10 to 20 women that has come every season since we’ve been open,” says King. “Last year, we had a group of women who has been friends since elementary school and came here for their annual trip together.”

King adds that women are often surprised by what they are physically capable of doing. Last season, she was the guide on a tour with an 83-year-old female participant. “She was absolutely terrified in the beginning, but she loved it!” 

Float Beneath a Balloon

“I probably fly more women than men, and more women buy solo flights,” says David Smuck, owner of Austin Aeronauts and a hot air balloon pilot. “You’re perched up there in the balloon and the world is going by you; it’s like you’re a cloud.”

Because balloonists are at the mercy of the weather, all flights are made at sunrise, a “lovely, calm time when the temperature is not too hot, even in the summer,” Smuck says.

Apparently, it is a romantic time of day, too. “Carol’s going to receive a proposal [next month] and she doesn’t even know it,” Smuck says, laughing, referring to a recent booking. Her fiancé asked that sticks or rocks be used to spell “Will you marry me?” on the ground below, so that she can see it from the balloon; however, “Because we don’t know where we’ll end up,” Smuck says, still chuckling, “the chase car [which follows all flights] will probably unfurl a banner.”

That, to Smuck, is the beauty of ballooning. “It’s the only time most people don’t have a destination; you’re [simply] going back to earth.” 

 
Explore More On Your Own
Alamo Helicopter Tours: www.alamohelicoptertours.com;  210-287-5797
Austin Aeronauts: www.austinaeronauts.com; 512-440-1492
Cypress Creek Canopy Tours: www.cypressvalleycanopytours.com; 512-264-8880
Sky Dive San Marcos: www.skydivesanmarcos.com; 800-SKYDIVE