Adventure amongst the tree tops
Up amongst the treetops you will find the adventures and challenges of the Skellefteå Adventure Park. There are six different high-altitude courses. Courses where you, safely strapped into a harness, move across a series of obstacles. Some easy. Others far more difficult. What they all have in common is that they are at a significant distance off the ground.
– One of the courses is slightly lower, explains Tobias who is one of the people behind the Skellefteå Adventure Park “and it’s about two metres up. That’s our children’s course. The highest one is also the toughest. There, you are about 12 metres up, which is practically amongst the treetops.
All courses have zip line, a kind of human cableway.
– The longest one will take you just over 80 metres, Tobias says with a smile. It is very high up, so it’s guaranteed to send a thrilling chill down your spine.
Seamless safety
After you have slid into your harness, put on your helmet and gone through a short introduction together with an instructor, you are ready to begin the adventure. The advice is to start low and work your way up. Calmly and methodically. If you have the guts, that is.
– You will have to work for it, promises Andreas, founder number two. Adrenaline will be pumping and the lactic acid hits you quickly if you don’t find the right technique. The safety system is of course rigorous and seamless. That means that you connect at the beginning of the course and then you cannot disconnect until you are through the whole course. Everything using the same safety harness.
– Really simple and really safe.
But of course, visitors get a little weak at the knees, at the start.
– You get hit by vertigo. In 99 out of a 100 cases it will pass pretty quickly but if someone feels they’re in over their head we will of course help them back down.
A visit to the mine
In the same area there is also a wilderness mine. The mine operated between 1936 and 1940. Today it serves as a visitors’ mine where you can visit underground. Protective coats and helmets are of course available to borrow.
– If you do not want to go down into the mine but would still like to get a sense of the mining atmosphere, there is a smaller visitors’ mine above ground.
– You know, climbing makes you hungry. That’s why we have a café where you can get a soft drink, a cup of coffee and a bite to eat , Tobias concludes.