Tree Climbing at Panola Mountain State Park

My mother-in-law bought some Amazon Local coupons so that all us kids could do an assisted tree climbing at Panola State Park.  Now I know what you're thinking.  "Assisted tree climbing?  That sounds super lame.  Why can't you just climb the trees like normal?"  I hear ya; I was thinking the exact same thing, but believe me when I say that this was much cooler than you'd expect.

First of all, our guide and his volunteers were there to have fun and to make sure we had fun, too.  They were knowledgeable and friendly, and at the end, I got to chat with the guide for a good long while about working at state parks.  These people were a blast.

So they got us into our harnesses, told us how to maneuver the pulley system, helped us up, then set us loose.  We could go up as high as we wanted in the tree, and we could switch to different ropes if we wanted.  At the top of one of the ropes was a geocache, and another brought you to a branch you could swing from like Tarzan.  I got some mad blisters because I was holding my rope too tightly, but that was the only not cool thing about the adventure.  Hope got the rope swing, Sarah and Caleb climbed on the big limbs they came to, and we all chatted and laughed up in the tree.

Turns out, the park offers night climbs, sleepover climbs, and climbs in 13 other trees on the property, too.  The lichen glows under a black light, so the night stuff sounds super awesome.  All of us were talking about how we'd love to come back by the end of the excursion.