By KAREN KEFAUVER
September 10, 2000
San Jose Mercury News
I reached out to grab the trapeze, my toes inching towards the edge of the narrow, wooden platform, 25 feet above the ground. Secured by a safety harness not much wider than dental floss, I questioned my sanity. My knees trembled and my stomach churned. I had not felt like this since I had to sing “Oklahoma” in front of my 8th grade drama class. I glanced down at my friend, Hank, who had wisely decided to remain on the ground. He shook his head and grinned. I took a deep breath, shut my eyes and leaped into the air.
How did I wind up at Tigoa Trapeze? Learning circus arts had not been part of our plans.
With the snow thawing in early June, Hank and I had ventured to the Eastern Sierras for a weeklong camping trip, hoping to beat the summer crowds. We drove through fields of wildflowers in Yosemite National Park and past the soaring, granite domes of the 10,000-foot Tioga Pass. We spontaneously decided to stay at June Lake campground, an hour outside of Yosemite.
On the second day of our trip, we set off to explore the rock towers and obsidian craters at Mono Lake. A few miles west of the tiny town of Lee Vining, Hank and I stopped for gas at a Mobil Station.
With a full tank, we were just about to leave.
“Check that out!” Hank said, pointing to a big contraption across the street, on a grassy knoll.
“Leftover construction equipment,” I shrugged.
“It’s a trapeze!” Hank insisted.
“No way,” I countered. “It’s outside, right next to the road, in the middle of nowhere!”
We decided to investigate.
When we examined the structure, we discovered a big U-shaped frame with a net stretched between three sets of tall metal poles. Two swinging bars dangled midway down. Maybe Hank was right.
At that moment, a tall, trim man stepped out of a trailer and said in a soft British accent, “Would you like to fly on the trapeze?”
I gaped at him.
The fellow may as well have said, “Do you want to go to Mars?” He pointed to an orange flyer: “Try the Trapeze, $5 a swing.”
A lesson starts in five minutes, he told us.
I looked at Hank. I looked at the instructor. I looked at the trapeze. Insanity! I knew I had to try it.
“OK,” I said.
“No way,” Hank said.
Jesse Mondry, 25, of Santa Cruz, had also decided to take the plunge: “When else will I get a chance to try the trapeze?” he reasoned.
Our trio followed instructor Paul Cannon to the practice bar. Paul reassured us that his background with the Bloomington, Indiana, circus had prepared him to teach us. I grilled him about safety procedures before I let him cinch and buckle a wide, sturdy belt around my waist.
With Paul’s help, I swung from the bar, creating momentum to hoist my legs up onto the bar. When I let go with my hands, hanging by my legs, the back of my knees ached. My heart was pounding. I was only eight feet off the ground.
“Great!” said Paul. “Let’s go up!”
He clipped my belt to the safety line. I approached the narrow ladder to climb up to the platform. I was shocked to discover that the aluminum ladder was swaying in the wind. I clung to each metal rung. Finally, I reached the top, quivering like a bowl of Jello.
“Are you okay?” asked Dennis Domaille, the Mobil station owner and assistant instructor.
“Yep,” I gulped, staring at the net below that would catch me if I bellyflopped.
I grasped the bar with white knuckles and stood teetering on the edge of the platform. I felt like I had climbed a mountain; Mono Lake stretched below me, protected by the jagged Sierra skyline. On command, I soared into the air, my legs dangling below, my breath trapped in my throat.
I swung back and forth, back and forth, like a pendulum. I was too petrified to hook my legs over the bar like I had practiced earlier.
“Great! Legs up,” Cannon coaxed.
I looped my legs around the bar.
“Release your arms!” he ordered.
I froze.
“Release your arms!”
I let my arms fall limp overhead. The blood rushed to my face. The mountains were upside-down. Kids giggled below.
“Fantastic!” I heard through the roar in my head. “You can drop now.”
Paul had demonstrated the drop. I was supposed to let go of the bar, lie horizontal, facing the sky, and bounce into the net. Instead, I plopped down in a V-shape. No harm done. I slid down a pole and planted my feet. I was ecstatic to be back on the ground.
Hank came over to congratulate me: “I have never seen anyone look so terrified in my life!”
“How on earth did you wind up with a trapeze on the side of the road at your gas station?” I asked Dennis, as adrenaline pumped through my body.
“I first discovered the trapeze at the Bahamas Club Med 10 years ago,” said Dennis. After a trip in 1998, I thought, “This would be cool to have at the store. On the Internet, I just happened to find a ‘trapeze chat room’ where they were selling equipment. This rig was for sale in Florida, where my daughter was in school. So I bought it! This rig has been around the world.”
Last summer, the trapeze made its debut at the Mobil station, formally known as Tioga Gas and Gift Mart. It began attracting about 50 people a day as news spread by word of mouth.
“It’s becoming a destination,” Dennis said. At that moment, a posse of young soccer girls spilled out of a minivan. Several of them were eager to try the trapeze despite their nervous parents.
Dennis said folks of all ages were willing to give it a go, but that, without exception, “the jocks in the gym, who think they can do this no problem, fall right into the net.”
“If you listen, follow the instructions on time, it doesn’t matter what shape or size you are,” Dennis explained.
I was famished after my “performance,” and thrilled to learn about Dennis’ other recent acquisition: a topnotch chef who had recently left an upscale Mammoth resort after a decade. Matt Toomey knew how to feed hungry trapeze artists with fresh fish tacos and mango daiquiris followed by Banana Fosters.
Hank and I walked back to the trapeze just as Jason Nolan, 24 and Meghan James, 24, scrambled up the ladder to the trapeze. The couple had driven nonstop from their native Illinois, where they had studied circus arts for five years at Illinois State University. Both had been Club Med circus instructors in Florida and Nolan had recently taught for three months in China. Dennis had recruited the pair from the Internet circus chat room to become summer instructors at Tioga Trapeze.
They treated us to a sample of what professionals can do on that trapeze bar. I confessed my newfound appreciation of their skills.
“Did you try the trapeze?” they asked.
“Yes,” I said, proudly, wishing I were wearing a spandex, sequined leotard.
“Did you try a catch?”
“What’s that?” I asked.
“That’s when you have another performer on the second trapeze who catches you when you are swinging from your knees. Doing a catch is a thrill you will never forget.”
I promised, “Next time, I will do a catch — when I run away and join the circus.”
Tempted to try the trapeze?
For more information, contact:
Tioga Gas Mart;
22 Vista Point Drive, Lee Vining, California;
(760) 647-1088
www.thesierraweb.com/tiogagasmart
San Francisco School of Circus Arts – (415) 759-8123
Circus Arts and Acrobatics; Roseville – (916) 788-0247
Trapeze Arts, Sonoma – (415) 337-1900
Swing Set Trapeze, Sonoma – (707) 933-0814
Not tempted by the trapeze?
Visit June Lake Loop. The scenic 12-mile loop, on Highway 158, five minutes off Highway 395, includes four lakes (June, Gull, Silver and Grant) and is a popular recreation area for hikers, bikers and fishers. I visited in pre-season, early June, and was thrilled to find almost empty campgrounds and an extensive network of quiet trails. I rode my mountain bike to June Lake Marina and added renting a kayak to my growing list of things to do in June Lake
Karen Kefauver is a freelance sports and travel writer based in Santa Cruz, California. When she is not flying through the air on a trapeze, the Washington, D.C. native trains for triathlon races, practices disco moves on her inline skates and reports on endurance events and adventure travel. She has covered the X Games, the Hawaii Ironman and cyclocross bike races for newspapers, magazines and online publications.
