High adventure

The rough-hewn plank was perhaps 8 inches wide and 4 feet long, suspended from above by thick ropes attached to a sturdy wire cable.

The ground was a mere 15 feet or so below me, but with acrophobia as severe and paralyzing as mine, I might as well have been on top of the Empire State Building.

Beyond the first swinging board lay perhaps six or seven more in a row. I didn’t stop to count them. 

Why bother? I’ll be dead in a minute or two. 

I didn’t even pause for a long, last, deep breath before facing my almost-certain doom. It was as if I were outside my body, watching someone else stride forward onto the obstacle. 

That first small, wildly uncertain step — onto the newly built, aerial challenge course at Beanstalk Adventure Ziplines in Catawba Meadows Park in Morganton — was a giant leap out of my comfort zone. 

But I was determined to take it, even though every fiber of my being was shrieking in revolt. 

Once atop the first board, I clinched the ropes with a death-grip as I struggled to steady myself.  

Meanwhile, down at ground level, a group of my coworkers stood watching. Somebody’s going to get a good story, I thought: “Reporter plunges to grisly death from aerial obstacle course.”   

To my great surprise, there was no plunging. 

And somehow, a few minutes later, I stood, shaking, sweating, and panting, looking back at the gauntlet of death-boards I had successfully conquered.

My coworkers cheered. So did my guide, Des, a delightful young lady with the patience of a saint.

A few minutes earlier, Des had outfitted me with a harness and given me a primer on how the ingeniously designed safety system works. 

She showed me how a stout cable runs through the harness, a powerful clip on each end. The clips are magnetized, and only one will open at a time. 

As a result, it’s impossible to become untethered from the main line, which means participants can enjoy the course without help from a guide. 

Emboldened by my success, I set out with vigor to complete the rest of the challenges, which included a tightrope walk across a single cable and a section where you dangle from a wire and use a rope to pull yourself across to the other side.

Meanwhile, a smiling Des flitted effortlessly through the trees, shouting encouragement and instructions, and swinging from platform to platform with practiced ease and the agility of a spider monkey.

My own progress more closely resembled that of a two-toed sloth, albeit a determined and relentless two-toed sloth trying to prove something to himself and succeeding.

Eventually, though, I reached my nadir, the plank steps on which I had started. Turns out the grade is a lot steeper on the return trip, and because my legs are so short, I couldn’t step across. 

I had to leap. 

I didn’t make it.

But — miracle of miracles — I didn’t freak out. I relaxed and trusted the harness to catch me. Sure enough, it did. 

My confidence soared. 

Above me, the highest section of the Beanstalk feature seemed to whisper a challenge, and I answered. 

Here, the swinging steps were much more substantial, and that was a good thing, because now I was dealing with a height — 30 feet or so — that was truly intimidating, the embodiment of a lifelong fear.

I vividly remember the first time I realized high places were my nemesis. 

My mother was a patient on the tenth floor at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Asheville when I was about 6 or 7.

During a visit one afternoon, I wandered over to the window. Looking down, I saw the gray city streets far below, crowded with tiny cars and ant-sized people. The towering skyline stretched away into the distance.

A sudden wave of sheer terror washed over me, turning my blood to ice water. I recoiled from the window and retreated dizzily toward the comfort of the far wall.

Things went downhill from there, pardon the pun. As I got older, the phobia only grew more intense. 

But now, here I was, strolling around casually in the treetops. I actually found myself pausing a few times to enjoy the view.

And I couldn’t stop smiling. 

I worried my coworkers might think I had been abducted by aliens and replaced with a doppelganger: (“Who are you and what have you done with the real Marty Queen?”). 

But it was really me, doing something that heretofore had seemed impossible. 

Somewhere along the journey, I had forgotten to be afraid of the potentially fatal drop beneath me and started having fun. Lots of it, actually. 

And that, folks, is what the Beanstalk is all about.

Marty Queen is the senior reporter for The Paper. He may be reached at 828-445-8595 or at marty@thepaper.media.