True Adventure Sports By Kayla Worthey

This area is known for its great outdoors. Our main attractions are some of the most beautiful natural landscapes around. You can visit Sequoyah Caverns in Valley Head for a guided tour of the cave and stunning reflecting pools. You can drive around the Little River Canyon National Preserve and witness breathtaking views. You can tour DeSoto State Park on its many hiking trails or you can stroll down for a refreshing view of DeSoto Falls. These are all great adventures to take, but if you are looking for something a little more adventurous, let me introduce you to Israel Partridge and his staff at True Adventure Sports.
They offer some kind of guided adventure almost every day of the week. You can choose from a list of adventurous thrills like Rock Climbing, Rappelling, Bouldering, Wild Cave Tours, Extreme Night Hikes, Zip Lining, a Sky Swing, Laser Tag and Treasure Hunts. They also offer Do-it-Yourself rentals on bikes, canoes, kayaks, mopeds, jet skis, and camping gear. If you are interested in learning, they have an array of classes such as GPS navigation, Practical Ingenuity, Orienteering, Certification classes and much more.
After my long, tiresome weekend, I decided to try the scariest (for me anyway) and least strenuous to start out, the Zip Line and Sky Swing Combo. We all meet up at the True Adventure Sports store located on Hwy 176. I was amazed at all the store had to offer. Drinks, snacks, t-shirts, Chaco and Merrell shoes, all kinds of camping gear, and a lot of things that were unfamiliar to me since I am not an everyday adventurer. After we sign our waivers, we load up to head out into the woods. I am starting to get a little nervous at this point, but am quickly calmed by the beauty of the Canyon. We drive a few miles down the canyon road before we arrive at our destination. We all unload and our guides grab the bags of gear. We hit the trail and almost instantly we are there. Our tour guides distribute our harnesses and helmets and then just sit back and watch as we make absolute fools of ourselves trying to figure out how to put them on. You can only imagine some of the conversations that came up in the next 5 minutes. Apparently there are a lot of different ways to incorrectly tie yourself up in one of these things, none of which are very flattering if you know what I mean. So after getting their daily intake of laughter, the girls decide that they better help us. Thank you very much since we have managed to embarrass ourselves beyond belief at this point. So, we get strapped in…correctly this time, and each guide double checks our straps and our helmets before we take off.
First up is the Zip Line! Towering almost 40 feet above us and spanning about 250 feet through the woods, it looks awesome! One by one we climb the tower and hook in. We get our brief lesson on what to do and then we are off. There are screams, yells, laughs, and hollers for the next hour! We even had a water balloon fight break out, staged by our hosts of course. Everyone was able to jump once facing forward and once going off backward. I think our nerves are gone now so bring on the sky swing!
We all follow the path down to the swing. Our guide makes his way up to the platform in the tree about 35 feet up. Who is first? I start my shaky climb to the platform and before I know it I am hanging backwards in a tree. What have I gotten myself into? All of a sudden I begin my free fall back toward the ground and I try to scream, but nothing comes out. Now I am facing the ground and heading into a full motion swing and finally I can breathe! What a rush of excitement! For the next few minutes I enjoy the breeze of the gentle, giant swing. After they release me from the swing and my feet are on the ground again, I can’t stop smiling!
Thank you Israel, Tyler, Elizabeth and Brandy. You guys were awesome and so was this trip! I can’t wait to come back for my next adventure!