Most fun thrill:
Some friends and I rented a racetrack for a day and had a swell time on motorcycles. With the threat of cars and cops gone, and the threat of animals greatly reduced, and everyone going in the same direction, and an ambulance on site just in case, we were free to ride at our own limits. There was no racing - nobody was keeping track of lap times, or who was ahead of who; it was just a matter of exploring yourself, your bike, and the track. 125 was as fast as my bike could go down the straightaway (it was a heavy sport-touring bike); the sport bikes always passed me at the start of it, but at the end of it they had to be gingerly on their non-ABS brakes, whereas I could brake late and know that I was covered by the ABS if I did happen to brake a bit too hard, so I always shot past them at the end of the straight. I decided to call it quits late in the day when I boiled my front brake and ran off into the grass (managed not to crash).
Scariest:
SCUBA diving at Stingray City. we jumped off the boat with a little bucket of squid chunks on our belts, and the local population of stingrays immediately become very friendly. The problem is that they were large, visually terrifying to behold, and they really could have hurt us, both with their venomous tail-barbs and with their sucking mouths (one diver in our group had a gigantic hideous-looking bruise on her arm from an earlier dive where one had latched onto her and given her the mother of all hickeys). The fear was further amplified by the narrow field of view we got through SCUBA masks; these rays came at you from all angles, so we were swiveling all over to watch out for one that might come from behind. Given that they were armed with those venomous spines, we wanted to be gentle in fending them off, but they were very insistent because they knew we had food; the best we could do was gently grab the leading edge of their wings and steer them somewhere else, while keeping their mouth away from us. The idea was that we’d grab pieces of squid from our buckets and feed them to the rays, but we had been warned to watch out for “cayman piranha,” opportunistic little (8") fish that would dart in and bite the squid out of your hand, possibly nipping your fingers in the process. I didn’t enjoy that dive at all; I was only in the water for a few minutes before I bailed and went back up on the boat to wait for the rest of my group to finish.
Right after the fall of Baghdad, I flew in to Hilla with $4,000 in my pocket to open an office for my NGO. I didn’t speak Arabic, but I found a real estate agent who spoke Russian; I remember sleeping in the garden by myself while there was fighting raging in parts of the city.
Later, during the Sadr uprising, I got stuck outside of Baghdad and ended up taking a cab to the Turkish border to get out of the country.
Soloed in an airplane. Even had my private license for a while.
Rafted the Gauley river.
Hiked across the Grand Canyon. Didn’t know anyone who’d want to go with me, so I went alone; not particularly smart but I never felt in real danger either.
Trip on a 180-foot sailing ship as a trainee; Nova Scotia to the Caribbean. We lost someone overboard in a storm. I posted about it at the time.
A bit adventurous maybe, but none of those seem like quite the adrenaline rush of skydiving or bungee jumping or such.
Bungee jumped twice. Tweeked my neck the second time, took over a month before I could turn my head to the left.
Drove figure 8 race cars. Had a couple good collisions at the intersection.
Drove a car off a ramp into 3 cars stacked on top of each other. Plan was to take out the middle car. Wasn’t going fast enough and the top car landed on the car I was driving. I was knocked out for about 10 minutes and didn’t remember what I did for about a month. Still have no memory of hauling the cars to the race track or how they were stacked on each other.
I was part of a soaring competition (in sailplanes like this). While thermaling (circling in rising air, which is how you climb) a guy who hadn’t seen me overtook and collided with my right wing, amputating 5 ft of it (his glider was more or less okay).
I bailed out (parachutes are required in competition gliders) at around 2500’ above ground, and landed safely. I’d made about 400 sport jumps at that time, so wasn’t too nervous about the prospects. But I think the event qualifies as thrilling, though possibly it lacks an “I set out to do it” aspect contemplated by the OP.
Apologies to the OP for continuing the hijack but I have a few more questions for Xema- Was the sailplane spinning after the collision? Did you have any difficulty getting out? How long of a delay did you take before opening? Did you wait until you were stable and belly-to-earth?
I used to skydive so did my fair share of fun and exciting jumps (including a most definitely unplanned double malfunction, I walked away after landing a malfunctioned reserve canopy). Night jump, hot air balloon, Boeing 727 cargo jet and a fully-restored Super Constellation all stand out in my mind but I think the most purely fun jump was from an open-cockpit aerobatic biplane; the pilot did a loop and at the top I hung from handholds on the upper wing. I was staring into the pilot’s face (he was wearing the old leather flight helmet with great big goggles) while he was grinning like a maniac and triggering the camera on the tail so I have some photos where it looks like I’m standing on thin air holding a biplane over my head.
After a short while I dropped away and he dove down beside me. Very cool.
I’ve been skiing a grand total of about 10 days in my whole life.
Went to a big assed ski place in Utah. The trails were IMO poorly marked.
Started down one trail I though was a blue. TURNs out it was a fracking double black diamond! With damn cliff on the left side of it. I meet a father daughter team at some point who had also been a victim of poor marking. For all I know they died there. It was every man for himself
After making my way down by basically crashing into snow banks from one curve to next I was exhausted.
The real rub though was towards the end of the day. They closed down some of the lifts and such a few hours before closing time.
The ONLY way for me to get back to the car? Take that fucking double black diamond a second time.
Sports car racing, on a road course. Full, hard, all-I-got braking from 135 MPH down to 40, hoping I didn’t brake too late only to overshoot the turn and… let’s not think about what ifs.
I don’t know if it’s in quite the same category as what others have posted, but I’ll say climbing down the cablesfrom the top of Half Dome. More thrilling than any amusement park ride I’ve ever been on!
Note–that picture gives you an idea of how steep the trip down is, but it doesn’t show the usual crowd of people trying to use the cables on a “normal” day up there. Imagine that same view with a line of people heading up and having to hang on to just ONE of those cables(on the outside) to shimmy your way back down!
Accidental thrill: Having the floor start collapsing while fighting a high rise structural fire. Closest I’ve ever come to dying and/or soiling myself.
Intentional (well, sort of) thrills:
Wreck diving at 180 feet on air.
Running a motorcycle at 110 mph, in the middle of the night, on an open interstate, high as hell, wearing a bathing suit and flip flops, and no helmet.
Search and rescue diving when you actually make a “find”.
Riding my old Raleigh 10spd bicycle 55mph downhill in the up in the UP.
My 30th birthday was a complete shocker, never thought I’d make it that far.
I could have typed out this exact same post, word for word- except for the double malfunction, never had one of those! I think we were lucky to be skydiving in the 90s, Valgard. The World Freefall Convention was a great place to log skydives from aircraft we wouldn’t normally get an opportunity to.* The partying after sunset was a lot of fun too.
I (along with some friends) also made a naked jump from a CASA that I should post in the “How far have you been from your clothes” thread- about 2 miles for me.
*Yeah, I know.
