Joanna Ransom is standing at the edge of a precipice.
“I’m so nervous,” says the 28-year-old, of Revere, Mass., as she peers down from a wooden platform about 50 feet off the ground.
“It’s just the first step off,”responds Matt Schweizer, a guide down below who shouts encouragement. “It’s a smooth ride down.”
Ransom, who is strapped into a full-body harness, looks doubtful. She debates various strategies for making the leap — jumping with her eyes shut, sitting down on the platform and then shimmying off, having her companion, Quincy Greenheck, 29, give her a push.
After several minutes of this, she finally takes the plunge, screaming a string of expletives along the way.
If there’s one thing I learned during my day at Ramblewild — a new “tree-to-tree adventure” park in the Berkshires — it’s that it’s far more entertaining to watch someone else panic while suspended from a cable high up in the forest than it is to experience it yourself.
The park, which opened in late June, is impressive. The main attraction is eight elevated obstacle courses of varying difficulties (similar to a ski resort, there’s even a double black diamond) — all of which radiate like spokes from a central, tree fort-style hub. Like Tarzan, you literally swing through a forest of mostly hemlock and oak.
The trails take anywhere from 30 minutes to 45 minutes to complete, depending on your skill and speed. Along the way, you might encounter a suspended climbing wall or a “lily pad” of highly unstable blocks you’re meant to hop across. There are zip lines that utilize snowboards, horse saddles and even a kayak that traverses a 90-foot ravine.
The park is still a work in progress, with the finishing touches on a main lodge still underway. Run by nonprofit Feronia Forests, Ramblewild’s mission is to develop the forest in a sustainable way: Its 1,400-acre property is also home to 10 wind turbines and 7,500 maple syrup taps, and there are plans for back country skiing and educational walking trails.
Here, I meet Jim Salvatore, 41, and his two sons, James, 13, and Logan, 11.
“It can be hard to get them out of the house,” says Salvatore, who lives a two-hour drive away in Millbury, Mass., referring to his children. “But this morning they were waiting in the car for me!”
Watching his kids’ effortless practice run, I become acutely aware that I have absolutely no idea what I’m doing.
Still, when it’s my turn, I manage, with tortoise-like movements, to get my carabiners locked into what looks to me like a maze of cables. When I zip across a line about 10 feet long — and since I’m living dangerously, two feet off the ground — I feel elated.
There, I’m assured I can handle a yellow (i.e., “beginner”) trail known as the “Fearless Grouse” — one of two yellow trails in the park, and, according to a park employee, the most fun of the pair.
The course feels like walking across a tightrope, and I find myself balancing on a series of wires, planks and netting. There’s a tunnel to crawl through and broken pathways to test your nerves.
Still, it’s not too bad since I can slowly pick my way through — rather, it’s the zip-line elements that really set my heart racing.
Those involve zooming through the air — straight toward a tree.
On the first zip run, I find myself rotating on the line as I approach a platform about 20 feet up. I do manage to stick the landing — partially by slamming my hip into the tree (bruise No. 1).
Suddenly, I suspect that I may have been a bit too cavalier in assessing my abilities to cheat death at the age of 40.
On the second zip run, I promise to do better. I make sure my carabiners are hooked in nice and straight, and I bicycle my legs through the air to help prevent any unwanted twisting.
Apparently, when Mike Duffy, my guide and the park’s general manager, told me to “hit the ground running,” he really meant it.
Thankfully, one of the many employees who patrol the courses is on hand to grab hold of my foot and pull me back to my intended landing spot, which also happens to be the end of the trail. I survived the Fearless Grouse!
I suddenly have a newfound appreciation for walking, so I roam around to see how others are faring.
Matt Proch-Wilson, 35, and Chris Sheehan, 50, both of Boston, are pumped from just tackling the double-black diamond trail. The adventurous duo are at the park to celebrate Proch-Wilson’s birthday.
“I learned from ‘American Ninja Warrior’ that speed is important!” says Sheehan, of his trail-blazing technique. “If you slow down,
you’re in trouble.”
Others aren’t doing as well. Thomas Leveque, 51, of North Adams, Mass., is strung up midair in a tangle of blocks and ropes after losing his balance walking across the deceptively Zen-sounding “lily pad.”
His rescue is more involved than my own, requiring Duffy to set up a double tackle pulley system to raise Leveque up and get him back on the wobbly blocks, which he now has to cross a second time. Given that he’d hung there a solid 10 minutes, I’m amazed at Leveque’s good-natured attitude.
Why do we purposely make life harder than it already is and call it recreation?
I suppose the experience is similar to skiing — you find your edge and you push past it. The result can be a great feeling of accomplishment — at least, if you don’t find yourself in the hospital.
Leveque’s second attempt is a success, and he raises his fists in triumph.
As for me? I vow to wear hiking boots, not flimsy sneakers, if I ever find myself swinging through the forest again. And to always hit
the ground running.
Tickets range from $57 to $69 per person. Open daily through August, then weekends through early November. 110 Brodie Mountain Road, Lanesborough, Mass. For more information, call 844-472-6253 or go to ramblewild.com.