From the moment I hit the gate at Carolina Adventure World, people were asking: "Have you done the zip line?"

It's the newest attraction at a 2,600-acre outdoor park designed with more than 100 miles of trails for all-terrain vehicles and dirt bike enthusiasts.

The park was featured as a Next Big Thing when the developers announced it in mid-2006 near Winnsboro, S.C., about 55 miles south of Charlotte on Interstate 77.

It's now open seven days a week with trails that challenge riders with various degrees of difficulty, motocross tracks, a mud bog, camping facilities and a welcome center with rental vehicles, souvenirs and food.

But the park is still evolving.

A clay go-cart track is in the works, and later this summer Black Ops Challenge will feature vintage military weapons that fire with compressed air and Fast Attack Vehicle rides.

Owner Don Wilburn estimates he will have invested more than $10 million by the time the park is completed over several more years with a lodge, full-service restaurant and a hotel.

A big challenge so far, said Jim Floyd, a Charlotte partner of Wilburn, has been getting utility services through rugged terrain to all areas of the facility.

Weekends, of course, are the park's busiest days, but corporate groups often book it for team building events on weekdays.

On the Saturday I visited, just under 400 people were riding the trails and checking out the scenery from one of the highest elevations in Fairfield County.

And the zip line?

Acknowledging my fear of heights, I tried for at least an hour to deflect questions about checking it out.

"OK, let's go," I said as my heart began to pound.

Attendants strap you into a safety harness, and then you climb the steps of a 17-foot tower for the first leg -- 1,300 feet -- of a three-leg course.

The hardest part is stepping off the edge, which I mustered the courage do as I yelled, "Geronimo!" just like in the World War II paratrooper movies.

I went whizzing into the sky about 100 feet over terra firma at roughly 35 mph. In just over 30 seconds I landed safely at the top of the second tower.

Woo-hoo! Off to the second leg -- 850 feet, and then the third, 1,100 feet.

Now that I'm pretty much a zip line expert, why are my knees still knocking?

Want to go?

Carolina Adventure World is 55 miles south of Charlotte on Camp Welfare Road at Interstate 77 Exit 46.

Visitors can buy day passes and rent vehicles seven days a week. Riding the Blue Sky Zip Line requires a separate fee.

Information: www.carolinaadventureworld.com.

It started with a grandfather and his grandson. After Don Wilburn took his teenage grandson, Cooper, trail riding in Brushy Mountain, Tenn., he couldn’t contain his excitement.

“He said it was the most fun he had ever had for $10,” recalls Joe Phelps, the general manager of Carolina Adventure World. Back home, Wilburn, the owner of the Wilburn Auto Body Shop chain in the greater Charlotte region, couldn’t get his mind off the adventure, so he decided to use his entrepreneurial skills to bring the experience to the Carolinas.  “At that point, he started seeking out a large tract of land, and he found this one in South Carolina and bought it from a timber company,” Phelps says of the 2,600 acres Wilburn bought four years ago. The land is in the timber region of Fairfield County near Winnsboro, just 30 minutes north of Columbia and 75 minutes south of the Lake Norman area on I-77.

From ground to air
After three years of work, Carolina Adventure World opened in April 2007. It now offers 100 miles of trails, a motocross course, a mud bog, a 40-acre beaver pond, tent and recreational vehicle camping amenities with a bathhouse, a welcome center with a shop and food services, and a half-mile of zip lines.

Expansion plans for this year include 10 miles of mountain bike trails, walking trails, a go-cart track, a sport quad fast track and a wash bay system for bikes or vehicles. There also will be a corporate meeting facility inside a yurt and packages for those services. By mid-summer, the facility plans to have motocross and go-cart races, popular events with loyal followings. 

“We’ve listened to the industry, and we’ve listened to our guests,” Phelps says. “We’ve tried to tailor it to what they want.”  Customers have responded. In the site’s first 11 months of operation, it had 20,000 guests, including 9,000 in the first quarter of 2008, while weather was still cold.  “It will take us years to do everything that we have in mind to do,” says Terri Wilburn, Don’s daughter, who handles marketing.

David Stewart, a Davidson resident, enjoyed motocross, a sport that is based on navigating obstacles such as jumps and water at the quickest speed possible, in his youth and has returned to the sport as an adult. He heard about Carolina Adventure World long before it opened and kept up with its development over the Internet. In December, he tried it for the first time and has returned many times since.

“I really don’t know of another place where you can go park in one place that has the same variety. If you took your family, you can rent four-wheelers or golf carts. I don’t think you could ever know all the trails. They do a really nice job,” Stewart says.

Family outing
With so many amenities available, families can make a day of it, with everyone having fun.

“There are not many places to ride,” Phelps says. “When you buy a dirt bike and you don’t own your own 400-acre farm, where are you going to ride it? Right after you buy it, you ask, ‘Where can I ride it?’ We have feeder markets from as far as Raleigh, Charleston, Savannah and Myrtle Beach. There are wives then with young kids who can’t ride, but they want this to be a family activity, and what we offer allows them to do that.”

In fact, many families divide and conquer when they reach the park. Some members might enjoy the motocross course, while others might try the zip line, rent an ATV to ride the well-marked casual recreation to black diamond trails or rent a golf cart to explore the service roads. At Top of the World, guests can enjoy panoramic views of the countryside and a dynamic sunset at the highest point in the county. It’s also the perfect location for a small hotel, an idea that Phelps hopes might come to fruition in the coming years.

“If we are able to host more guests here for several days at a time, it will benefit the local area much more,” Phelps says.

Want to Go?
Carolina Adventure World is located 2 miles east of I-77, exit 46, on Camp Welfare Road in Fairfield County, S.C.
Hours are 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily.

For more information, call 803-482-3534 or visit www.carolinaadventureworld.com.

| LN