How did my adventure go?

What Did I do again?

For my “mental adventure”, I went Zip-lining in Historic Banning Mills in Whitesburg, GA on September 21^st With Alec Zavodny and Alex Brooks (student from different section Of Engl 1101) to see if I can be helped with my fear of heights.

How did it go?

Zip-lining went flawlessly! We got Banning Mills without any problems (didn’t get lost), and we managed to get checked in on time. For our first part of the tour we had the guides taught us how to put on and use the gear that we were given. The gear contested of: A helmet (protect your head), hooks (so you can be attached to the caddy, and so you don’ fall if something happens), Gloves (so you don’t get rope burn when you break), harness (all the hooks and caddy are attached to this), and lastly a caddy (which made you roll down the zip-line). The guides also taught us the proper way to break (by letting your hand slide behind you), and the callouts for when you are transferring your hooks to the wires on the trees or to the zip-lines. They made us say transfer one and transfer two; if you say transfer one and give your hook to your partner they will say transfer one when you are attached the same goes for transfer two. After about thirty minutes of them lecturing us we had to cross a 70 foot bridge. We had to attach our hooks to the wire above the bridge and walk across it. Walking across the bridge wasn’t that bad because we were hooked in and I felt really safe. After walking across the bridge we had to walk on top of a 100 foot tower where the very first zip-line was at. I was the very first person out of my group to go on the zip-line and I was very nervous.

I was very hesitant going on the zip-line, but I eventually gathered myself together and went on the zip-line. It wasn’t that bad to be honest… I was scared at first but I quickly got over it. We went on about 9 different zip-lines which categorized in three levels (there was a fourth level but we didn’t go on that one) there was: beginner, semi-intermediate, and intermediate. The zip-lines on the last two levels averaged about 1000 feet in length and we went about 55-60 mph on them, and in between getting onto the zip-lines we had to cross a bunch of very shaky and unstable bridges.  Overall this trip was well spent and the best part of it all was that we didn’t have to pay the full price which was $100 (the front desk people charged us $70 because they thought we went on only two levels).

Does my definition of a “mental adventure” apply to this one?

I think that all my definitions of a “mental adventure” apply to this. Here are my definitions and I’ll explain how they applied:

1)      A place where the adventurer is in a psychologically uncomfortable situation.

-          I was put in an environment which required me to be over 70 feet above the ground. I felt nervous even though I was secured in by the hooks.

2)      A “mental adventure” is the threshold that the adventurer has to go through to find a new understanding.

-          Going on this adventure is the beginning of my path to truly facing my fear of heights. After this adventure I started to feel a lot better about heights; I started to feel safe because I knew that there was always something keeping me safe (barrier, harness, etc.)

3) It tests the adventurer’s true will power; they must face their fears and challenges.

- This adventure truly tested my willpower. I had to cross those bridges and go down the zip-lines trusting that my equipment would keep me safe. I also couldn’t back out of it because that would be wasting time and money.

4)      A “mental adventure” is trial and error before the adventurer is full cured of his/her struggles.

-          This adventure helped me cope with the fear of heights. I was faced with many situations that made me uncomfortable, but I don’t think that this adventure truly cured my fear of heights. I think that I’ll need to keep going on adventures like this and I have to keep making them progressive more challenging (bungee jumping and sky diving).

Would I recommend this adventure?

I recommend that you guys go and try this out for your selves! Zip-lining is very safe and extremely fun. You just got to make sure you go to Banning Mills, because they got the best zip-lines in Georgia.