Rope Swing

This was my family's backyard in the fall of 1987. When we moved to this house my dad decided to not take our swing set from the old house with us with the promise of making us better out door toys. My dad was inspired by the "Jumpin' Jungle" in IdleWild Park in Ligonier Pa. He felt he could build us our own Jumpin' Jungle.
This is what me and my sister named the "Rope Swing." We had this rope up at our old house but it was just hanging from a tree branch. Inevitably while swinging on the rope it would rotate a certain way and you would go crashing into the trunk of the tree. To fix this problem, at the new house my dad strung a cable inbetween two large maples. He attached the rope to a pully and the pully to the cable. Therefore now the rope could freely swing between the trees making it (almost) impossible to run into anything. The pully also allowed you to move the rope along the cable letting you swing and slide at the same time if you launched yourself in certain ways. Later my dad built this deck about 4 feet up to allow us more height while swinging. After some practice we learned to swing out and return to the deck. Later my sister would even climb to the top of the telephone pole (that is what that pole in the middle was) and launch herself from there. Personally I don't remember any of my friends that were brave enough to swing from the deck, however I do believe many of my little sisters friends were willing to do it. We could never understand why anyone could think this was dangerous. lol
A few years ago the rope finaly broke and fell down. It lasted almost twenty years...

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• idlewild
• park
• jumpin
• jungle
• rope
• swing
• tarzan
• backyard