By Nick Lees, Edmonton Journal

My knees trembled and I felt nauseous last week as I stepped off the plane in Salzburg, Austria. En route to my niece’s wedding in the alpine ski village of Leogang, I was worried about the Flying Fox.

My niece Lis Lees, a Crown prosecutor in the Cayman Islands, was marrying Paul Schreiner, the chief financial officer of the island’s National Roads Authority.

“We’re getting a party together to swoop down the mountain on the Flying Fox the day before our wedding,” Schreiner had emailed me. Lis had been in Canada to participate in my Kids with Cancer cycling team a couple of times, and they knew I was once known in Edmonton as Nick Danger.

“We expect you to live up to your moniker,” he said.

But what’s the Flying Fox? Is it suitable for a man of a certain age?

“It’s billed as the longest and fastest steel cable slide in the world,” Schreiner said of the gravity-propelled device, sometimes called a zip-line or an aerial runway. “We’ll swoosh down the valley at 130 kilometres an hour, just like Superman. Bring spare underwear.”

This particular Flying Fox had been created last year by celebrated German stuntman Jochen Schweizer. In 1997, he set a world record for the longest bungee jump by leaping from 2,500 metres with a 285-metre-long rope.

On the eve of our jump, and over a wiener schnitzel and a two-litre glass of locally brewed Edelweiss Weissbier (wheat beer), I was confronted by my brother Jim and his former wife Denise.

They definitely didn’t want a fatality associated with their eldest daughter’s nuptials.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Denise asked. “You are nearly 70 years old. The shock might kill you.”

This did play on my mind a tad the next morning when I signed a waiver saying I was of normal physical and mental strength. I boarded the gondola for the ride up the mountain carrying a horizontal harness, helmet and goggles in a rubber bag. It struck me the rubber bag looked as if it might easily double as a body bag.

“Cremate me locally if I die,” I told my brother Jim, who does not have a head for heights and had no plans to jump. “But send my ashes back to Edmonton for friends to sprinkle into the North Saskatchewan River from the High Level Bridge.”

I had goose bumps as I donned my gear near the middle station on the Asitz ski hill.

I wondered if I should tell the instructor I had two new hips of steel, the cartilage removed from my right knee, a dislocated shoulder, and I’d broken my left collarbone three times. Perhaps he’d say I wasn’t a suitable candidate to fly down the mountains.

“Keep your arms by your side until you clear the start gate,” the instructor said. “You don’t want to lose your arms as you quickly gain speed.”

Everything went from my mind as he released the cable. The ground flew by below, then fell away. I found myself weightless and sailing across the valley.

I have never hang-glided (are you crazy?) and thought the feeling must be somewhat similar, but slower. I had a wonderful view of the meadows below and the surrounding mountains. Trees flew by below me and I spread my arms out and pretended to be a superhero.

The orange marker, where I had to bring my arms in before flying through the towers of the lower station, came up quickly. I tripped a brake and was stopped in six metres.

“You did well,” said the attendant who unhooked me. “Some people shake so much they have a hard time climbing off the landing platform.”

I started to shake. He pretended not to notice.

Next day, we hiked beyond the top ski station for the mountain top wedding ceremony, the second that day. (In the morning, the happy couple had married in a civil service at Leogang’s small museum, large enough to accommodate only family members.)

Some 70 relatives and friends from 13 countries, led by a string quartet, sang All You Need is Love before vows and rings were exchanged.

I had been invited to conduct the re-enacted wedding ceremony and heard one woman say to her husband: “Is that guy really a priest?”

I may not have looked like clergy, but I had said a prayer before donning my harness before braving the Flying Fox.

I felt great striding down to the ski lodge for the wedding feast. One’s biggest battles are often fought inwardly. No one ever knows your heart rate nearly ran off the clock.

For more on this story go to:

http://www.edmontonjournal.com/travel/sure+want+this+nearly/7148952/story.html