High Ropes Course

The Thursday of June 6th, two days after visiting the Brauerei of Dortmund, our group took a trip to a high ropes course a few miles outside the city. It was a free event that the program put on for us, and so I felt it was a pretty good deal for my first time high-ropes-walking. When we got there, I immediately noticed the huge jungle-gym of giant wooden poles and ropes all around us. It looked like a grown-up's playground, and we couldn't wait to get on. Below, Heiko and I are already a bit frightened at the idea of these super high ropes.














The first task we performed was the climbing of the president's ladder. This ladder was made of wooden, circular logs and they were spaced further and further apart as you climbed up the ladder. We formed groups of three to climb, one in the center and one on either side. The second rung of the ladder was pretty easy to climb to, since it was only at about shoulder height. That was the only easy rung, though. After that, the next rungs were at head-height or higher, and because the rungs were attached via ropes, the ladder swung as we tried to climb. So there was no way whatsoever to climb the rungs by yourself. If you tried to jump off of one of the rungs, the ladder would swing in the opposite direction and you would lose any counterweight you'd been using to jump. What we ended up doing was I was in the middle, and i would kneel down into a crouching position, placing my knee at a 90 degree angle. After doing this, the others could use my knee as a step and climb up and be able to reach and swing onto the next rung. After each of the other two people climbed up, I then jumped, and they grabbed onto me and helped me up. It was a 20-30 minute ordeal, but was ridiculously fun and we eventually finished the ladder.



















After the ladder was the high rope bridge. This was a bridge made with 2 ropes strung from one giant telephone-like pole to another, with planks of wood across it (It's viewable in the background of the president's ladder). The trick was, the bridge likes to swing if you don't balance correctly, and it's also missing a bunch of planks throughout. There were places where it was missing 1, 2, or 3 planks in a row. This made the trek across especially fun, as you had to almost jump from one to another. To make the walk even more exciting, they gave us a blind fold we could choose to wear and have someone from the ground guide us across the bridge. This is what I chose to do, and it was definitely the right choice. I had Heiko (our program coordinator, see first picture) direct me across, and I managed to get all the way across the bridge without falling. There was one spot where I kind of tripped up, but I made a few leaps my feet found the bridge, and I managed to stay on.














(Notice me blindfolded, above). After finishing the bridge, they let out a bunch of rope and we jumped off the bridge. We free-falled about halfway-2/3 the distance from the bridge to the ground, where the rope caught and we bounced a little bit and almost had a heart attack. The fact that we were blind folded throughout this made it that much better. The third and final part of the ropes course was the swing, which basically we were strapped to the giant structure, pulled up by everyone else, and let go, where we swung some 100 feet in the air. It was a pretty huge swing, and as awesome as the high bridge. All in all, the ropes course was an awesome experience, and we had a ton of fun trying to get around the obstacles.