Mountain of thrills.

Byline: Mark Baker The Register-Guard

GOVERNMENT CAMP - Here, at the base of Oregon's highest point, one of the more popular attractions at the 1,000-acre Mount Hood Adventure Park at Skibowl comes with strings attached. Strings in the way of a bungee cord and a body harness.

It's like jumping off a seven-story building - without the pancake effect. It's like leaping off a 100-foot tower because that's exactly what it is - a 100-foot tower.

``3 ... 2 ... 1 ... bungee!'' says the jumpmaster.

After hesitating for a moment, a young girl takes the plunge. She grabs onto the tubular yellow cushion - there if you need it - for dear life. She plummets toward the inflatable pit beneath before springing back toward the platform like a yo-yo ... then back down again ... then up ... then down ...

Why would a 13-year-old girl do that?

``Because my dad bugged me,'' says Kaytlin Ingman of Longview, Wash.

And what was it like?

``It scared me to death. But it was so much fun.''

The most popular draw at the park, though, is the Alpine Slide - dual half-mile tracks on the west side of the ski bowl that twist their way down the hill and carry hollering children and adults in sleds you operate with a lever between your legs.

The Freefall Bungee Tower is on the ski bowl's east side, next to the 500-foot Zipline, another butterflies-in-the-stomach attraction where you leap into the air off a deck about 45-feet high and cruise along like a runaway pair of pants on a clothesline.

``3 ... 2 ... 1 ... zip away!'' says the jumpmaster.

"It was awesome!" says Kody Beach, 17, of Watertown, N.Y. "It's wicked fun." Especially upside down.

"He said we could flip around and stuff, so I just tried it," says Beach of the Zipline's jumpmaster, the guy who hooks your harness up and makes sure everything is safe.

The Alpine Slide was built in 1980 and has been providing summertime fun at the ski bowl, which opened for wintertime skiing in 1928, ever since.

But it was in 1987, after Kirk Hanna bought the ski bowl out of bankruptcy - adding 34 lighted ski runs and billing it as "America's Largest Night Ski Area" - that the summer adventure park began to take shape.

A year later, mountain biking and hiking trails were added, along with go-karts, miniature golf and something called the Gyroscope that's no longer there. Maybe that's because its nickname was the "Vomit Comet."

Today, there are more than 20 attractions, from the aforementioned thrills, to disc golf, batting cages, Summer Tube Hill (a 300-foot inner-tube course), a rock climbing wall, the Trampoline Slingshot, Sky Chair rides, horseback rides, volleyball and many others - all with that stunning view of 11,239-foot Mount Hood in the background.

The park gets more than 200,000 visits in the summertime, operations manager Hans Wipper says.

"It's a great way to utilize the space," he says. "It helps balance things in slow ski years."

And, if good old-fashioned bungee jumping isn't enough for your blood pressure, there's also the Rapid Riser Reverse Bungee, where you start on the ground and get shot 80 feet into the air, pulling 2.5 g-forces (closed for maintenance during our recent visit).

And, yes, you must sign a waiver if you want to do either the bungee jump or the Zipline.

"I'm wondering if they'll tie me up by the ankles and let me go that way," says Bryan Gromowksi, glancing over at the Bungee Tower as he waits in line for the Zipline. His friend, Elise Nelson of Newberg, is worried about bungee jumping.

"I'm the exact opposite of her - I ain't scared of much," says Gromowski, 21.

Neither have bungee-jumped before.

"Are you afraid of heights?" Gromowski asks her, playfully.

"Nooooo," says Nelson, also 21. "I'm not afraid of heights. This is just not what your body's meant to do. If it was, there wouldn't be such a thing as gravity."

Before she knows what happened, Nelson is flying along the Zipline, her red hair trailing behind her. She lets her hands go - allowing the harness to do all the work - and lets out a whoop and a whee ...

Olivia Martin, Kody Beach's 12-year-old sister, finds the Zipline a thrill. She's all smiles as she glides along.

Bungee jumping is something else. At least the first time.

"It was really, like, scary," she says. And the second time? "Much easier."

Her cousin, Taylor Geist of Beaverton, also describes the Bungee Tower as "very scary."

Did you think about just backing away once you got up there?

"Yeah, but then I made myself," she says.

Why?

"Because my 9-year-old brother did it."

And what did Dawson Geist think? A 9-year-old? Bungee jumping?

"It was really fun but creepy in the beginning," he says. "I was kind of daydreaming that the thing would break and I'd fall."

Taylor and Dawson's father, John Geist, 39, decides the ground is where he wants to be. No bungee?

"No, not this time," he says.

After the Zipline, Nelson conquers her fear of the Bungee Tower and finds herself bouncing up and down after free-falling as Gromowski takes photos from below. Although still a tad worried, she enjoys it enough to give a thumbs up and even climbs back to the top for another go.

Gromowski decides to go off upside-down, his legs wrapped around the yellow cushion pad. His head almost hits the inflatable pad below as he bounces and bounces and hollers and screams. Soon, he too is back at the top.

Isn't that a wee bit frightening going off upside-down?

"Doesn't scare me," he says, explaining that he recently experienced something far more terrifying: getting hit by a truck a week ago while riding his bicycle in Wisconsin. "You get hit by a truck, nothing really scares you anymore," he says.

MOUNT HOOD

ADVENTURE PARK

What: Summer adventure park at Mount Hood's ski bowl has more than 20 attractions

Where: 87000 East Highway 26, Government Camp

Summer hours: 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday; 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. weekends

Admission: All-day action pass, $59; all-day adventure pass, $29 for adults, $25 for kids 7 and younger; half-day adventure pass, $25 for adults, $19 for kids 7 and younger; two-hour passes and attractions a la carte are available, too

Age/size restrictions: Minimum age for many activities is 3, with adult supervision or participation required on some; some activites also have minimum and maximum height and weight requirements