Again, this couldn’t have happened on a busy day.Īnd, people, I’m not kidding here. Seriously! I was getting tangled! So I asked (read: demanded) a staff person to be there with us throughout the course. It had been years since I’d used the Georgia Power hook-unhook belay system myself. I immediately asked to join Lee on the course-luckily it was a super slow day, and a staff person let me quickly sign a waiver and I was up the tree a few elements later. So by this time the mom-and the camp counselor in me-were going into quiet alarm mode. That means if my child got mixed up, she would be receiving verbal instructions shouted from the ground. There was no one on many of the platforms with participants. Second, for most of the high elements of this course, staff were located on the ground. That means this precious ninja had 50 opportunities to mix herself up and become completely unattached from the safety device at heights of up to 70 feet. I would estimate Lee had to make about 50 transfers during the 26 element course. That’s a lot to manage for anyone, much less an ADHD nine-year-old with five minutes of training. so that one carabiner is connected to the cable at all times. You’re supposed to hook and unhook yourself as you climb, go around trees, etc. You can kinda see it in the pic below of Lee. My 9-year-old, not so much.īasically, you’ve got a Y-shaped piece of rope connected to your harness with a carabiner on each end. It’s basically the same technique the Georgia Power guy uses to climb poles. However, here’s what I saw going on.įirst off, Callaway uses a static belay system.
Unfortunately, by this time my kid was on her way up a 20-foot rope ladder. And around element 3 of this 26 element course, I started seeing giant, huge red flags on this course. I know my way around ropes better than the average mom-actually I’ve trained years ago as a ropes course facilitator. Well, folks, I fancy myself a responsible parent.
#Camp cheerio accident full
From what I could see from the check-in desk, it didn’t seem so bad and she just cleared the minimum height requirements, so I coughed up $45 for the TreeTop Course and another $15 and added in the Lake Course, so she’d get the full treatment. Why not? There are a ton of places to do it here in Georgia, so…we headed down to Callaway Gardens to try their Treetop Course. She’s seen ziplines on commercials and YouTube vacation videos. My nine-year-old daughter’s favorite shows are Survivor and American Ninja Warrior, so maybe it’s my fault she’s been begging to go ziplining. Or 3 Reasons Not to do the Adventure Course at Callaway Gardens