Trying Some New Things

This year I hit one of those milestone birthdays so I have decided to use that as an excuse to try a few new things. One of the things I have been wanting to try for a few years was a treetop adventure course. This is where you climb up into the trees and walk over different wobbly bridges and other swinging obstacles as well as zip lining through the trees. My nephew has done it a few times and the more he talked about it the more I wanted to do it.  

So this past Thursday my sister, my nephew and his daughter went to FlgX in Mt Arlington NJ near where my sister and nephew live.  

It wasn't the best weather as it was raining on and off but under the trees the rain didn't really bother us and it was cool which was good because going through the course really works up a sweat. It's hard to describe what the actual course is like. There are basically three types of obstacles you have to make you way across. The first are bridges where you have to walk across widely space planks or a narrow cable. These I didn't find to hard you just had to be careful to place you feet correctly to keep your balance.

The second type of obstacle is suspension objects. This is where there are some logs or balls or other things that are hung from cables that you have to make your way across. For example they had some 3 inch diameter logs hung like a trapeze and you have to step from one trapeze to another without falling. These were challenging and definitely used every part of my body. Legs, arms and core. The first one of these obstacles was hard but I got better at them as I did more of them.

The third type of obstacle was a zip line where you had to leap off the platform and glide over the trees to the next platform. This is easy once you get over your fear of jumping off a platform 20 to 30 feet in the air. 

I have to say the safety system at this place is amazing and I had no fear that I could actually fall at any point in the course once I understood how it worked. You have a full harness on with 2 clips and a zip line pulley. Before you start up the ladder both the clips have to be clipped in or you can't climb. As you move from obstacle to obstacle there is no way to unfasten more then one clip at a time so you are always hooked to something. When you are on an obstacle you have to have both clips hooked on to a cable. If you fall off an obstacle the most you could fall is about 6 inches before you will be hanging from the clips in your harness. Then you just pull yourself up and keep going. I was luckly as I never fell from any of the obstacles although I came close a couple of times.

The harness you are in is also pretty secure so the first time I did the zip line and had to hang by the harness it just felt like sitting on a canvas swing. 

You start out on a demo course which is only 5 feet from the ground so you figure out how to work the clips and harness and zip line pulley there before actually climbing up into the trees. 

 FlgX has 5 levels of courses that you can go through (Green, Blue, Silver, Red, and Black) each level gets a little higher and harder. It took us 2 hours to work our way through the first three levels. There are 8 to 12 obstacle in each level. It was challenging and tiring and a full body workout. It was also fun and rewarding. Not only because we made it through the obstacles but because we were joking around with each other and helping each other through each obstacle. 

We start up the 4th level but after getting a closer look at the challenges my sister and I decided not to go on. There was one obstacle you had to walk lengthwise over a log with nothing to hold on to. I didn't think my arms and legs had enough left to do that. 

My nephew and his daughter started the 4th level but my nephew had to stop halfway through as he pull something in his shoulder and had to be pull off the course. His 12 year old daughter made it all the way through and the last obstacle is doing a Tarzan swing into a cargo net which looked like a lot of fun so I'm sorry I couldn't make it there. 

The tree top adventure course was challenging both mentally and physically. Surprisingly I didn't have a problem with the height or the possibility of falling. It was good to push my boundaries of what I have comfortable with. Once I made it through the first few obstacles it was actually a lot of fun and something I may do again.