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Maybe you’re an adventurer, an X-Treme sport nut. Maybe you can’t even remember the first time you traversed a zip line. But Jamie, Loralee and I are not really X-Treme — well at least we weren’t X-Treme until we took the zip line “plunge” in Georgia. Now we think of ourselves as pretty X-Treme, I guess. We went out to Historic Banning Mills specifically to put ourselves to the test — the Tree Canopy Tour looked like fun, but could we really do it?

Together with our two Canopy Guides, and two folks who came up from Alabama just to traverse this particular canopy tour, we started up the first flight of stairs of the 60-foottower. We stopped there, where we geared up in our harnesses and got some instruction on what we were about to experience. Then we headed up to the top. (I’ve never climbed one of these towers in its entirety as my knees would always knock! Not this time, I was mentally ready.)

Oh, it was high. We learned how to connect our lines on the deck and then, when we were ready, move our lines one by one onto the zip line. One guide zipped out first to meet us at the next station. Loralee was the first novice to go. It was scary. We were on a 60-ft. tower, but we were looking out over a vast open space at least 100 feet above the ground. Loralee seemed to do very well and it gave me confidence. When I got myself hooked to the zip line, I simply took a deep breath, eyes wide open so as not to miss anything, tucked my feet up and zipped off over the treetops.(We were relieved to discover that we didn’t have to jump off the tower, which would have been scarier.) How cool. How beautiful. How quick! This first zip line had a ground landing. Here’s a picture of me coming in for that landing.

It was absolutely a thrilling ride!

Here’s some perspective on how high that first zip line is –looking at it from one of the decks at the resort. (I’ve enhanced it in red.)View all my trip pix on FLICKR.

NEXT: The Canopy Tour Gets More Challenging — A Walk-Across the Treetops Adventure. (I can’t wait to show you what happened next!)

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