Tree Huggers

              Ever wonder what ski mountains do during the off season?  Turns out, there's one on the border of New York and Massachusetts that takes to the trees while the weather is still good.  My husband is obsessed with craigslist and we he scored two $45 tickets to the Catamount Adventure Park for only $20, we knew it was a great deal!  We quickly learned, at this adventure park...you are the ride.

              Nuzzled in a five acre wooded setting at the base of the mountain, the Catamount Adventure Park is an aerial forest challenge!  The park features more than 130 platforms with arrangements of cables, wood and zip lines that connect you through the forest.  It seriously looked like we had landed on Endor!  The park looked as though it had been designed by Ewoks, but really Swiss Alpine mountaineers helped build the park to the standards of the American Challenge Course Technology.  It didn't take long before we were suited up with harnesses and leather glove and after a quick lesson on how to stay hooked into the trees, officials turned us loose.

                The park featured nine courses in varying degrees of difficulty that challenged our balance, agility, focus and strength.  For a while there, I was sure I had none of those things!  The courses were color coded for complexity: yellow, green, blue, black and double black.  Everyone had to start on a yellow course & work your way up...I'm guessing much like the bunny hill on the ski slopes.  It took a little while to get the hang of it, but once we did-we were off!  We dangled high in the air over the tops of trees and zip lines shot us through the forest leaving our adrenaline working over time!  Just looking at the course was enough to work up a heart rate!

             This park was not a good idea for anyone with a fear of heights!   By the time we made it to the blue level courses, we were easily 30-40 feet off the ground.  The self-guided tours took us through obstacles that made you feel like you were a player on Fear Factor, minus the bug eating.  It was hard to remember that even if you did lose your balance, your safety harness would catch you.  For the true weenies, the course was littered with ladder wielding  staff members that would rescue you...but honestly, going down those ladders looked scarier than most of the obstacles.

               This was the first time I had ever done anything like this!  I'm not a hiker, haven't been camping since I was 6 (& successfully contracted the chicken pox) and am not really an 'outdoorsy' type of girl.  My first thought was "This is what it's like to be on Circus of the Stars!"  I did have a huge worry that I wouldn't be able to stop on the zip line and end up crashing into a tree.  Luckily, that didn't happen & my screams of excitement and fear just blended in with the other Ewoks folks on the course.  The ropes course was really a ton of fun and just about wore us out!  We spent three hours playing in the trees and woke up super sore the next morning...my thighs were killing me!  Although I never made it to the black levels, I was pretty happy with my progress.  Who knew I had it in me?  I'll tell you one thing though...there's nothing like spending the day feeling like a flying squirrel!