Thrills Upon the Hills : Rappelling, an offshoot of mountain climbing, feels a little like parachute jumping. But devotees say it’s safer.

Those were big rocks waiting below Point Dume’s western cliffs. They lay below a nonchalant Les Gulliver as he dangled from a rope, rappelling down in short, free-falling bursts.

It is always the same whenever he jumps from this 85-foot-high rock overlooking Malibu and the Pacific.

As usual, Gulliver seemed to know what he was doing, smiling beneath a khaki fedora, and dancing a crazy jig along the rugged sandstone wall. This is, after all, the way he spends his weekends.

Teaching sport rappelling for California Adventures Co., Gulliver says his three-year addiction to jumping off cliffs derives from a desperate need to release energy built up working in windowless offices as a data-processing consultant.

“I sit behind a desk during the week, and I like to get out in the outdoors on the weekend. I need that,” said Gulliver, standing on the Malibu sand during one of his classes. “It keeps you in balance.”

Rappelling is an offshoot of mountain climbing; it allows for a quick descent from a cliff along a single rope. The climber hops away from the rock wall, free-falling until the brake-hand--the hand that holds the rope behind the body--stops the fall.

In the military, rappelling is a way to quickly deploy troops from hovering aircraft. But sport rappelling is designed for savoring the experience.

Before Steve Staley left the elite Army Rangers in 1985 and founded California Adventures Co., he took the sport’s thrills for granted.

That changed as he watched a long line of men and women, ages 9 to 75, glide with excitement along the cliffs of Point Dume or Stoney Point in Chatsworth. Among Staley’s most enthusiastic students, he said, was a 65-year-old woman whose rush up and down the steep Malibu mountain tired him out.

“When I started, I thought we’d get a whole bunch of these Rambo-type people, young studs who wanted to get out there and do anything,” said Staley, 29. “That’s just not the case.”

It became Gulliver’s sport of choice after abandoning plans to try some riskier thrill rides. He ruled out parachute jumping, he said, after meeting too many experts who had suffered broken bones. And hang-gliding lost its appeal when Gulliver watched a PBS documentary on the sport and learned one of its featured experts was killed in a flying accident soon after the program was filmed.

By contrast, Gulliver said, rappelling is safer with its simple ingredients of a securely tied rope and the one-handed braking system.

“People always think it’s really dangerous, because you’re just free-falling,” said Gulliver, 36. “But you’re in total control. So you get that sensation, yet you’re perfectly safe.”

More psychologically challenging, if no more dangerous, is the Australian Swan Dive, which has rappellers leaping along the wall face-down, like a some slow-motion suicide jump. By the end of one recent class, most of the 10 students had attempted the “Aussie style” rappel, but few repeated it.

“Thinking about it was scarier than doing it,” said Paige West, 41, who was among the first in her group to try the stunt. “It feels a lot more secure than I thought it would, because you’re touching, you’re walking. And you can actually stop yourself.”

Rappelling students, whether right-side-up or upside-down, pay $50 for a California Adventures Co. class. The fee includes use of rope, harness and gloves. The one-day class has been offered through such schools as Glendale Community College and Los Angeles Mission College. Repeat students receive a discount on class fees. California Adventures Co. is among a handful of companies that offer courses in rappelling itself; most rappelling instruction is taught as part of a broader mountain-climbing course.

To date, there has been one significant injury in almost four years at the company, according to Staley, who said his company does not carry accident insurance because he cannot afford the premiums.

One woman sprained her ankle at the end of a day in 1988 when she stepped into a small indentation in the wall. But it was soon clear there would be no bitter feelings.

“She wrote me a letter afterwards thanking me for the day,” Staley said. “And then she signed up for the advanced class.”

For information, call (213) 652-6879; or write to California Adventures Co., 279 S. Beverly Drive, Suite 1001, Beverly Hills, 90212. Classes are scheduled regularly or by appointment.