According to their website, Mega Cavern was originally a limestone quarry turned storage facility turned indoors recreation center. It has an underground bike park, a tram tour, a zipline cave tour, and what we came for, an aerial ropes course. And one day, my sister, Liz, and I, decided to take all of our kids, plus two other cousins to check it out and have some climbing fun.
Our party of 8, kids ranging between the ages of 5 -13, plus my sister and I, arrived for our 7pm check-in time – and were pleasantly surprised to find the course to be fairly empty for a Friday night. We got checked in, signed all the documents to acknowledge that at least some of our party would likely become seriously injured and it would be all our fault, and then went to the harnessing station. Here, two guides personally harnessed up each and every one of us and then we went through a practice belaying station. Mega Quest uses a double belay system, where you can’t unhook both your belays at once, only one belay will open at time, so that at all times, you are hooked on to the guidelines at all time by at least one belay. In addition, there was a guide stationed on the floor in the middle of the obstacles whose job it was to go to anyone who said, “help”, and get them through the obstacle they were stuck on. Also, there’s no place on the course you can unhook – you need a special unhooking station to do this and those are only found at the entrance and exit of the course. So I actually felt like all the cousins were very safe on this course, even considering their ages.
The older two cousins took off with the youngest one between them, and my sister and I headed onto the course with the other three; she in the back, me in the lead. We took a low obstacle of wobbly wooden beams suspended end to end, over to a rope netting that went at an easy angle up to the second level transition platform that looked like a crow’s nest. Now the rule is that only one person can be on the obstacle at a time, and only three people can be on a transition area at a time. So I went up first, then slowly up came one of the girls. Then as she got up to the transition station with me, a story up from the floor, I realized three things:
1) that our next obstacle was extremely wobbly wooden beams, set parallel to each other
2) that in order for our whole group to move across was for me to start on the next obstacle while leaving three little girls hunkered together on what was basically a narrow wooden surround on top of a telephone pole
3) that it was pretty unnerving for ME to look down while traversing the wobbly boards and I could not foresee the girls attempting this as their second obstacle and then doing any other obstacle on the course.
So we aborted that mission and about-faced back down to the first level obstacles where we stayed, and which went great – my sister and I congratulating ourselves on providing the kids with this memorable experience that was also character and skill building. The kids had to judge the best way to get across an obstacle – and they were tough – and then get a sense of pride and accomplishment when they completed one, and encourage each other across, and also, its great physical exercise. We were superstars
But then…
We headed over to the zipline.
That was the beginning of the end. Now, I should mention that there was a mini zip line on the first level. One that had very little slope downward, but a rope so if you got stuck half-way through, you could drag yourself to the end. We did not do that one. We went for the Big One. My sister had been zip lining before, the girls seemed all in after their first few obstacle successes, and so off we went. All the way to the back corner of the course. The corner you could only get to after doing multiple obstacles, and, may I remind you, that there is no way off the course unless you go all the way back to the entrance, via multiple obstacles. Consider this foreshadowing.
The kids were troupers all the way up the climbing apparatus to the zipline. This took an extraordinary amount of time b/c by this time, the oldest cousins had transferred custody of the youngest one back over to us, so Liz and I had all 4 little guys and their short-reaching arms couldn’t reach the guide ropes very well, so my sister and I had to help each one move their belays and get up onto the platform. We got all 4 kids up, Liz went across the zip line to show them how and also to man the end of the line to help them unhook. Then, the unnaturally brave 6-year-old went zooming across, whooping it up and having a great ride. Then, the others began to cry. So down the rest of us went. Liz was already on the other side, but the small tween girl birthday party group that was waiting for the zip line were able to help me get the rest of the kids down – two of which were crying fairly heartily, because although they had gone up the ladder just fine, something clicked and looking down as they descending was too much for them.
For brevity’s sake, let me just say some time passed and we ended back at the course entrance where we unhooked all the kids and got them settled at table so that Liz and I could traverse some of the upper-level course. Little kids are easily occupied by lollipops and we adults could see the kids from our vantage point. It was a fun and memorable experience. Even though the littlest kids needed help, a lot of the time they didn’t – which made them feel accomplished and brave. And once I was back down on the lower level, I felt a little brave, too.
Fifty State Family 