Roped Into Fun

A few weeks back, some coworker friends and I ventured up north a little ways for cooler temperatures and changing leaves to willingly suspend ourselves 60 feet above the ground in cabled harnesses, like anyone would choose do on an ordinary Saturday.  I’d heard positive things about Flagstaff Extreme for several years, and was eager to try out a ropes course for fun, without it having any underlying team-building or leadership implications attached. 

As we arrived at the check-in center and were fitted with our harnesses, the reality of our choices weighed upon us as we considered what we were actually preparing to do, and how much safer we felt with the ground solidly beneath our feet.  Jessica’s nerves were such that she was unresponsive to my jokes and light chatter, staring stoically ahead as if preparing to enter a battlefield.   

We started out small, not even five feet above the ground, on what was considered a “kiddie course,” walking a suspended bridge, navigating a single wire tightrope, and zip lining a short distance to familiarize ourselves with the obstacles ahead and how to use our equipment.  From there, we began the preliminary obstacle course 10-15 feet above the ground.  As we grew more comfortable and confident advancing to the following levels, the obstacles accordingly rose higher and higher off the ground while increasing in difficulty, until we found ourselves suspended on a small 3’x3’ wooden platform built around the trunk of a tree three stories in the air, unexpectedly unfazed by the perilous drop in every direction. 

I was the last of our group members to complete each obstacle, bringing up the rear, so even though I saw my friends navigate their ways ahead of me, each course still required planning, strategy, and balance to step my way across a series of wooden swings or to shimmy across a single suspended log to the opposite end.  The best part of it all, however, was the zip lining, often at the completion of a course, literally zipping through the forest at high speeds, legs kicking wildly in the void below.  As the obstacle courses increased in difficulty, the number of zip lines increased proportionately, almost as a reward for your insanity. 

Veronica and Jess called it a day after completing 3 of the 5 courses, opting to sit out and watch while I determinedly plunged on through course 4.  I’m not a very competitive person by nature, but apparently some rabid beast awakens inside of me when it comes to feats of individual performance, like this or my Fitwall class, and I have to finish in order to prove my apparent greatness to the world. 

But…after doing this skateboard thing



and this wobbly log bit



and these stupid horizontal swings of death,

that competitive beast ducked its head and resolved to be okay with mediocrity, whispering that I could skip the last level and no one would implode. 

Plus, the earlier we left, the sooner we were able to get chips and salsa for dinner.