Our recent visit to Unicoi State Park in north Georgia proved
to be an ideal retreat for writing a book while sojourning in a beautiful
natural setting. Unicoi State Park is part of the Georgia State Park System,
now celebrating its 85th Anniversary. Back in 1931, the State of
Georgia recognized that it should establish permanent aesthetic natural areas
and set up its park system, often using CCC’s to develop many of Georgia’s
State Parks.
Unicoi State Park, the largest of Georgia’s lodge park
operations, opened a lodge at this park in 1973, and it has earned a place
among my favorites in national and state park lodges. The name Unicoi gets its
name from the Unicoi Turnpike, a toll road that brought in the first settlers
in this area near Helen, Georgia. The name is defined in several ways: “place
of the white man,” “white man’s road,” “the new way” and “new beginning,” and
derives from the Cherokee word “unega,” which means “white.”
The Blue Ridge Mountain area is always a favored destination
for me, and during our six-month stay at Sewanee, Tennessee, we make at least
three trips into the area. This month, Unicoi State Park, set in the
Chattahoochee National Forest, became a “first,” and ‘though we used the time
there to work on a book, we enjoyed observing the stunning natural setting.
Notice the word “observing,” as a short hike was the only physical activity we
attempted.
We stood in the parking lot and watched a group of stalwart
adventurers zip down the Quick Trekker, a zipline that extended from 75 to 400
foot lengths on a Level 1 course and longer on a Level 2 course. The zipline
was referred to as “the safari in the trees” because trekkers get a bird’s eye
view of the forest beneath and often glimpse indigenous birds and animals
below.
When we went into the lodge gift shop, two young men at a
desk looked at my friend Vickie and me, both of us among the league of white-haired
women, and one of the guys asked if we had come in to register for the zipline. He
failed to hide a smile that bordered on a smirk.
“I did that already,” I told him. “Back when I was 57 years
old. It’s a lot of fun, but once is enough.” I didn’t tell him that there was
no way I could traverse the catwalk from one platform to another, let alone climb the steps to the platform, and the zipline was at a much higher elevation than
the one I had swung from in upper state New York.”
“A woman, 82, zipped down the other day,” the smirker said.
A female assistant at the cash register smiled at us and
said, “Notice, it was a woman who did this feat.”
“Well, I guess I’m too young to try to beat that record as
I’m 81, but maybe I’ll come back next year and tie with her for the oldest
quick trekker.” I left him chewing on this remark, but I have no intention of
entering such a competition.
The exchange brought back memories of the “Six Day,” a
physical challenge course in upper state New York that caused me to vow I’d never engage in a physical challenge program again. However, the zipline
was the easiest challenge activity in the course. I remember being almost
frozen with fright when we were brought to a cliff where a small platform had
been set up, a long wire extending from the platform down to the bottom of a
large pasture. We were strapped to the wire at the waist and were told to put
our hands on the handle of the zipline and to “just step right off.”
Those
words still inspire fear in me, but once we started zipping down, fear
vanished, and about midway, the feeling of excitement that equals a first
roller coaster ride, overcame me. Rather than keep my legs together, as advised
and which the people on the Unicoi zipline obediently did, I performed a
swimmer’s frog kick and whooped for joy. It was an exhilarating experience. As
I watched the Unicoi Park zipliners, I was amazed at their serious demeanor.
Maybe they were traveling faster; maybe they remained frightened during the
entire trip down, or maybe they were just serious about performing this feat as
if it were another notch on their belts, but they didn’t seem to enjoy the
experience as I had.
I probably should have shocked myself by registering for the
ride, but those stairs and catwalk looked a bit daunting. And, really, at 81, why do I have
to prove that I’m a Quick Trekker following a “new way” in the Georgia woods?
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