I almost morphed into a sapsucker.
Think of one of those cartoons with a character splatting into an obstacle when not paying attention. I had heard instructions but apparently forgot the admonition to raise my feet when landing or risk a face plant into a huge, somewhat-sappy Doug fir.
At literally the last second, memory kicked in, and I raised my dangling feet as I hung on to a zip line, landed on a platform and came away with only a sticky glove, making it a semi-successful landing in the Tree to Tree Adventures’ challenge.
We were west of Portland, Ore., near Hagg Lake (and wineries!) trying out a new adventure park. The immediate impression was of uber-solid construction of platforms and challenges, an adult playground in rock-solid trees.
The park, which includes 2,000 linear feet of challenges, is the only one of its kind west of Mississippi. It’s the brainchild of Gerry and Julie Beres who, after finding jobs in the area, joined with two of their adult children and designed the park.
“These parks are big in Europe and Canada … There’s a perfect demographic in Oregon,” Molly Beres said.
The park officially has been open since Memorial Day. It took about 18 months to work through the permits.
Modern human beings have evolved to keep their feet on the ground, so tackling the course is a counterintuitive act. But the course is designed to test and build up confidence on easier sections before turning participants loose on challenges 40 to 50 feet high.
Black is the hardest and highest section. One of the adventure’s 44 challenges is a huge spider web of ropes.
“It’s really scary for a lot of people,” Beres said. Once snared by the web, adventurers have to extricate themselves to reach the next platform.
Standing under people high in the trees, I could hear comments such as, “My heart’s racing!”, “Oh my gosh, this is really tall!” and “This tree is moving.”
All guides are trained in both instruction, the quirks of the course and rescue in case someone falls. Falling is more embarrassing than dangerous. Everyone, no matter the skill level or height, is in a harness and helmet, clipped to a safety cable with two carabiners.
They say it would take 66.6 150-pounders to severely test the cable strength.
After the initial training sections, the course forces you forward. If you can’t go on, a guide will arrive to help you to the next platform or lower you to terra firma.
Under the guidance of Peter Doyle, I tackled the first stages that introduce newcomers to the challenges ahead. The guides determine who is comfortable enough with above-ground tightropes, tunnels, mini climbing walls, ladders, zip lines and swaying suspension bridges. before they move on to a more difficult level.
After getting stuck in a tunnel (my fused back is not very flexible), and inventing a creative way to get out of the situation and onto the next platform, I navigated through the comparatively easy stage of swinging bridges, a tightrope and two small climbing walls.
Since it was now after the park’s hours at the end of a long day, I called it quits, happy that I wasn’t covered in sap.
Columnist Sharon Wootton can be reached at 360-468-3964 or www.songandword.com.
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