Zip Line

Many travel trends sound like a stint in the Peace Corps. Eco-travel . Voluntourism. Not that there’s anything wrong with that – in fact it’ll get you points in heaven (talk about frequent flier miles). But for pure whimsy, it’s hard to beat the rising number of zip lines over the last few years. Add a major Wrightwood course to your list. Beginning in July, Navitat Canopy Adventures plans to operate a zip-line tour that it is calling a "rainforest-style canopy excursion," meaning that it will have a series of different zip lines that stop along the way so that riders can study and learn about the habitat (there’s that learning thing again)

A bird's-eye zip of Catalina Island The first zip line in Los Angeles County has opened on Catalina Island, where participants get a bird's-eye view of pristine Descanso Canyon as they fly above chaparral and through a eucalyptus tree canopy. The Zip Line Eco Tour consists of five separate lines — one longer than 1,000 feet — that crisscross and drop into the rugged ravine before they end, 440 feet below, near the beach. But the ride promises more than thrills suspended from a steel cable at times 300 feet above the canyon floor with speeds topping 40 mph. Signs on each platform explain the local fauna, flora and history; guides trained by the Catalina Island Conservancy supply interpretation.

Stand-up paddle boarding has arrived -- at least on a tour of Brazil , where you can spend nine days filled with hiking, sea kayaking and zip-lining. The trip is called Brazil High Energy Extravaganza . Activities center on the Green Coast south of Rio de Janeiro, an area known for its fishing villages and pristine waters. Three days of hiking -- in Paratay, on the Mamangua Tropical Fjord and Sugarloaf Mountain -- are the warm-up for a sea kayak and stand-up paddling tour of Paratay and nearby beaches, followed by a day of canyoneering and zip-lining before returning to Rio de Janeiro.

AVALON - I'm standing at the railing, the late-morning sun warm on my face and hands, when the ship turns slightly and I see it, a rugged jumble of mountains jutting from the sea. We slow and enter the harbor, where a village clings to the hillside and colorfully painted speedboats flash by pulling water skiers. As we draw close to land, children swim out to our vessel yelling, "Throw a coin, throw a coin. " When I do, a boy dives, popping back to the surface clutching it and laughing.

The reality of the height and speed at which I was traveling didn't hit me until almost halfway through the zip-lining course. Joel Hunt, my 23-year-old guide, told me that the fourth and highest line -- the one I was about to ride -- was known as the most spine-tingling. I quickly found out why. After easing off a wooden platform secured to a Douglas fir, I sailed through a cluster of treetops and then watched as the ground gave way below me. Suddenly, I was 30 stories in the air, hurtling toward a mountain, the oaks and pines and streams that litter the floor of the San Gabriels smirking up at me, the Mojave Desert on my left, Hunt just a tiny, faraway speck on the side of a massive cliff toward which I seemed to be careening at 45 to 65 miles per hour.

Reading the stories Steven Gilbar has collected in "LA Shorts," you sense that the sexiest boundaries Angelenos cross are property lines. Borders, both real and metaphorical, run like an electric fence through the streets and suburbs of Los Angeles, separating neighborhood from neighborhood, neighbor from neighbor. Realtors hold the keys to self-reinvention--and sometimes, to their clients' bedrooms (Tom McNeal's "Winter in Los Angeles"). Like the house in the D.H.

Necrotizing fasciitis is a rare but potentially deadly disease that ravages the body's tissues and causes them to die off, earning it the fiendish nickname "flesh-eating bacteria. " A Georgia college student, Aimee Copeland, 24, is currently fighting the disease from her hospital bed near Atlanta. She contracted necrotizing fasciitis after falling from a homemade zip line ride during what was supposed to be a day of fun in the sun on May 1. The fall left a gash in her left calf, believed to have been the entry point for the necrotizing fasciitis.

While the main body of the Coachella Music and Arts Festival lies on the Empire Polo Field, a connected, but far-flung grouping of parties act as a titillating extension of the main event. In order to get your party on in the most organized and extensive way possible this weekend, here's a rundown of some of the best shindigs in the desert. If all goes well your dance card will be packed four days straight. Note: Locations are often kept secret until you RSVP, and getting an invite often depends on who you know - just like back home.

Aimee Copeland is finally home. The 24-year-old Georgia woman had spent several months in the hospital and then a rehabilitation center after a protracted battle with flesh-eating bacteria. The infection ravaged her body and nearly killed her: Both her hands, her left leg and her right foot were amputated. The nation has been following her fight, in part through a blog created by Aimee's father, Andy. The blog kept family and friends apprised in the early days, when her prognosis was so uncertain.

Emerging from the African jungle, my knees wobbled as I carefully traversed the missing slats in the rickety footbridge. In the river chasm below, a dozen sunbathing crocodiles were awaiting my first misstep. This surreal safari scene seemed real enough to me -- even though I knew the make-believe jungle was deep inside a theme park carved out of Florida swampland. Disney's Animal Kingdom in Orlando, Fla., has been offering the three-hour Wild Africa Trek for about a month now, taking about a dozen visitors at a time on VIP guided tours through the theme park's Pangani Forest.