Yesterday I stared a fear down and won (kind of). A couple of months ago I purchased a Groupon offer for Adventura Rope Challenge Course and Zipline. I’ll be honest…I thought it was just a couple of ziplines…obviously I didn’t read the entire thing. Turns out it was a whole lot more rope challenge than zipline.
The afternoon started with a quick safety lesson and practicing while standing on the group. The transferring from one challenge to another goes like this.
- Find someone who isn’t in the middle of a challenge and ask if they can transfer you.
- Once they say ‘yes’ you ask ‘transfer one’. They respond by saying ‘transfer one’.
- When they hear your carabineer click, they say ‘squeeze check’. You respond by squeezing your carabineer to make sure it’s locked and then say ‘squeeze check’ back to them.
- Then you ask ‘transfer two’. They respond by saying ‘transfer two’.
- Again you go through the squeeze check.
- Now you are transferred.
There was whole other process for belaying/climbing up the rope ladder. I met a gal, Jen. Her and I both agreed that it was a lot to remember. But fortunately we did remember it and that turned out to be the least of my problems.
The fear started right away. As I was climbing up the rope ladder I started to ask myself ‘what the hell am I doing’. By the time I got to the top I was near tears, but I didn’t let anyone else know that. Apparently my fear of heights was a bit stronger than I thought. I immediately asked what the easiest/fastest way down was. Paul (one of the instructors) was so kind and he showed me the easiest challenge to attempt first before I decided to go back down and quit. Turns out the hardest part of every challenge was the first step off the platform. I did the log and then Paul also talked me through a couple more challenges. I stuck with the easier challenges, but even those would be challenging for a lot of people.
I walked the log several times and even got to where I could do it without holding on to my safety lines. I walked a wire challenge a couple of times. I did a zipline where you had to fling yourself off the platform to get enough momentum. I also walked a ladder in which the steps were different distances and you practically had to jump. I did a challenge called the Charlie Chaplin (two wires that you shuffle across). I jumped from one platform to another. And, the final zipline was the way down. It was a hydraulic zipline.
I had a blast. I will definitely watch for this Groupon offer again and maybe next time I can talk some of my friends into going.
Oh yea…did I mentioned it rained the entire time. Just a typical Western Washington day in October.