RUMFORD — “Best ride ever!” and “Awesome!” were the top exclamations from a few hundred riders who rode 700-foot zip lines Saturday.

They flew side by side at an estimated 20 to 30 mph while dangling 65 feet above the Androscoggin River during Envision Rumford’s daylong, debut Paul Bunyan Lumberjack Festival.

The zip-line ride was the main attraction for many.

“It was a little bit scary at first, and until I got down, I just, whoo! had fun with it,” said Casey Saisi, 15, of Rumford.

She said she’d ridden a smaller zip line strung between trees at Bryant Pond, but this was her first ride on a much longer line. She rode down beside her father, Kevin Saisi, who was on the other line.

“It was terrifying,” Casey Saisi said of flying over the river. “Because I’ve never, never gone across the river like that in my life. Yeah, I screamed.”

James Raymond of Rumford said his ride was “amazing.”

“Just seeing the waterfall, it’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen before,” he said.

“Oh, my God! That was wicked awesome!” Jordan Barre of Mexico yelled repeatedly after arriving at the landing zone beside her friend, Adrianna Belskis of Dixfield, on the other cable.

“I felt like we were flying,” Belskis said.

“Best ride ever,” both girls said.

Experienced zip-line riders Nick and Betsy Salvati of Livermore said they really liked the river crossing.

“We’re really looking forward to a big zip-line park (here), because we live in Livermore and it would be real close by,” said Nick Salvati, 59. “This was a lot of fun. This was well-worth doing. Going over the river is what really makes this.”

“It was great,” Betsy Salvati, 61, said. “Hopefully, the idea they have for running (a zip line) into town and a long one down under the bridges works.”

Envision Rumford’s overall project is to build seven world-class zip lines totaling 14,000 feet that would launch riders from cement platforms and raise towers high along the river. They would pass under Memorial Bridge to the snow dump site. The pad at that site is tentatively named the Cataract Station.

Saturday’s WOW-ZA! Zip-lines ride began on a platform high above the river beside Memorial Bridge. Cables attached to a skidder owned by Kenrick’s Logging of Rumford at the start were anchored on the opposite riverbank to a platform near the Chisholm Park Trail.

Envision Rumford engineer Jim Sysko of Newry designed and helped install the ride. It was run by professional zip-line operators Monkey C Monkey Do of Wiscasset, Maine’s first high-flying family adventure park with zip lines. One ride cost $10; two rides were $15.

Prior to the scheduled start, there was an initial mishap in which a woman was shaken up after a ride. She walked along the trail with help from emergency responders to an awaiting Med-Care ambulance to be checked out.

People in line had to wait about 90 minutes while the braking mechanism was tested 20 times by the Wiscasset staff to ensure the ride was safe, Envision Rumford member and WOW-ZA! Zip-lines developer Thomas Carey said.

Bill Mylam, course manager for Monkey C Monkey Do, said they were using a 3-to-1 pulley system with grooved blocks on the zip line cables. It worked like a belaying system, with Mylam and another employee doing the braking with ropes run through pulleys on trees and attached to the blocks.

“This is a beautiful setting,” Mylam said of the Rumford zip lines ride. “It couldn’t be any nicer.”

The zip-line attraction was a huge hit under a cloudless sky, with temperatures in the 60s and 70s.

“We’ve been at this since about noon and plan on going to about 5 (p.m.),” Carey said at 2:15 p.m. “The weather’s great. Everyone’s excited. There’s a lot of yelping and a lot of excitement.”

Several people did multiple rides, though not as many as Carey said he’d expected.

He said people were busy checking out everything the festival had to offer at the other end of town, including displays of logging equipment, antique tractors, wagon rides, logging competitions and children’s activities.

Carey’s son, vocalist Seth Carey and his band, Paul Bunyan and the Lumberjacks, entertained crowds on Congress Street, performing live rock music for several hours.

“It’s just been a great success, and we thank everybody for joining in,” Tom Carey said. “It’s really a nice compliment to the community for people to join in like this.”

“It’s a great effort by the Envision Rumford group,” said Town Manager Carlo Puiia, who was dressed head to toe like Paul Bunyan. “There’s a lot of volunteers and a lot of hours that they gave to the town. It’s a feel-good for the community. It’s a win-win situation.”

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