Do you have a favourite spot in BC we should know about?
Contact getawaybc.com
Editor, Cheryl MacKinnon Or click here to submit a calendar event
Aerial Adventure
Monday, May 11th, 2009 by GetawayBC.com
I am standing about 20 metres above the ground, my feet on a thin wire running from one tree to another far in the distance.
As I step forward on the wire, I leave the safety of the wooden platform further and further behind. The wire beneath my feet grows increasingly shaky.
With nothing to hang on to overhead but the small wire my harness is clipped to, the trapeze obstacle gives me the feeling of walking a tightrope, albeit not gracefully. The adrenaline is definitely pumping.
While my initial reaction was to turn around and head for solid ground, I forced myself to swallow my fear and continue onward.
This is what the TreeGO aerial adventure park is all about, says Jonathan Huitikka, site supervisor with WildPlay Element Parks.
He says the owners of the park, two former mountaineering guides from Victoria and Squamish, witnessed the changes as people faced their fears and climbed.
“They wanted to bring a similar experience to more people,” says Huitikka. “People find they get a real sense of accomplishment from completing the course. A lot of people are like, ‘Wow, that was really hard, but I made it!’”
The course boasts about 70 different obstacles in the trees from start to finish and takes about two hours for the average climber to navigate.
Before anyone is allowed to climb around on the aerial obstacle course, they must successfully make their way through a quick demonstration course.
After being shown how my harness and the rope clips work, I tried it out along with the rest of the group. The harness, while awkward for the first minute, was easy to figure out. You are clipped in to an overhead red safety wire at all times with two different ropes attached to your harness, with a third rope you use to attach yourself to the zipline pulleys.
On the green course, I quickly got into the rhythm of clipping and unclipping my harness ropes to the overhead safety line and tested my balance on the first couple of shaky bridges with relative success.
As I moved from the green course to the blue course, I tried out a variety of ziplines, wobbly bridges, ladders, rock climbing walls, tunnels and suspended logs I had to balance on.
The tarzan swing on the blue course was one of my favourite obstacles, and although high up and a little scary, the guide below me reminded me that I had the option to take an ‘easy route’ if I didn’t want to try it.
Continued on page 43
Huitikka says giving the clients options like this is one of the nicest things about the course. If the customer gets too scared, guides are trained to lower people at any point on the course and there are signs at the end of each section telling people to either climb down or continue onwards to the next level.
At the red level, I was climbing obstacles that truly challenged my abilities–the spider net crawl and rock climbing wall portion (I took the optional harder route) required a lot of upper body strength.
By the time I reached the final stretch, the black course, I was apprehensive about what was in store for me.
Huitikka says the course is different for everyone because it is all about how far each individual is willing to push him or herself.
“If you want to balance and push your skills to the limit, you can make it really challenging,” he says.
I opted to hang onto the overhead safety rope for dear life on many of the final obstacles instead of trying to complete the obstacles hands-free, by balance alone. Even many of the shaky, suspended bridges and log rolls on the first two levels had me gripping on above as the ground swam in my vision below me.
The final challenge was grappling–extremely ungracefully, I might add–with jumping from swinging log to swinging log and walking the tight rope mentioned above.
Once on solid ground, with shaky knees and a bit of a relieved feeling, I congratulated myself on my performance. The promised sense of accomplishment hit me and I reflected that I would definitely take a swing through the course again–if only for the multitudes of fun ziplines, each one longer and higher up than the last.
Huitikka says I am not the first to desire a return trip.
“It seems to be really catching on,” he says, adding the park averages about 200 visitors per day in the summer.
Plans to open five more parks in the next five years are also evidence of how popular this activity is becoming, says Huitikka. The locations of these parks are still being determined, but one will likely be built near Victoria.
Huitikka recommends that visitors with more climbing prowess visit the TreeGO park on weekdays or during the less busy months of May, June, September and October because large summer groups can slow progress through the course down.
Children wanting to complete the course must reach a height of 4 foot 7 for the childrens’ yellow course and to go on the adult course, they must be able to reach to a height of 5 foot 11.
Huitikka says people of all different ages can try out what the park has to offer, from seven-year-olds to their 86-year-old grandparents.
For more information, please go to www.wildplayparks.com.
reporter@nanaimobulletin.com;