Element - sophisticated belay and safety systems, consisting of wire cables, friction devices, climbing ropes and seat harnesses, manage risks while allowing participants to engage in a range of moderate to intense mental and physical challenges. At its highest point the course stands 35 feet above the wooded meadow in which it was built.
Focus - leadership development, team building and personal challenge goals.
A progression of activities places the participant in an environment that allows a high level of personal choice (participants choose where they enter the course and how they proceed through it) with clearly delineated results.
High Ropes Course Outcomes - different for each person as individual responses are largely based on the individual's past experiences, physical skill and emotional aptitude and the choices they make while in the course.
The high ropes course is ultimately a personal challenge. Although the entire team shares the experience, working together to run safety systems (under staff oversight) and encouraging one another to excel, the impetus for achievement on the course comes from the individual rather than the group.
Participating in such a physically and mentally challenging event at the end of a day devoted to personal development and goal-oriented achievement gives participants a feeling of confidence and empowerment as their experience with OWLS draws to a close.
Descriptions of high ropes elements:
High Ropes Course Entrance Elements
There are four ways to enter the OWLS high ropes course, and each caters to different physical and mental abilities.
- Ewok Bridge: accessible to the widest variety of climbers, Ewok Bridge is like a staircase of rope and wood, constructed with hand lines to increase participants' balance. Designed for people facing physical, mental or emotional challenges that might make it difficult for them to otherwise participate in a high element event.
- Tall Ships Cargo Net: more physically strenuous than Ewok Bridge, the Tall Ships entrance is a large cargo net rising on an incline from the ground to the highest platforms on the course, 35-feet in the air. Successful completion requires that participants have a certain degree of arm strength in addition to leg strength.
- Vertical Ladder: moderately strenuous, this rope and wooden rung ladder requires the participant to coordinate their leg and arm movements to climb this free hanging element, while utilizing their core strength to keep them close to the ladder as it sways under their motion.
- Firecracker: the most physically challenging element for entrance, the firecracker is made up of wooden rungs that are connected by a single rope that runs around the center of each rung. This construction allows the rungs to move in all directions if equal force is not applied to each side as the climber negotiates the ladder.
Traverse Elements on the High Ropes Course
Once participants have completed an entry element, they next move through a series of traverse elements. As they move through the course participants are attached to a static belay safety system - an overhead cable that runs the length of the element they are crossing. They clip in before beginning the element and change to a new system when finished and preparing to begin another element.
- Pirate's Crossing: participants walk along a cable with their hands on a rope. The climber must transfer their grip to another hand line, releasing one hand at a time from the rope that formerly provided all their stability, in order to complete the challenge and reach the next platform.
- Grapevine: uses a metal foot cable for balance as a participant moves from one high platform to another with a rope that runs overhead with many "grapevines" (vertical hand lines) dropping down as handholds.
- Burma Bridge: climbers get to traverse a primitive looking bridge made of three main cables: a foot line and two hand lines that are connected by ropes at regular intervals. This element includes a long traverse of the ropes course and provides a great introduction to being up high with a moderate degree of difficulty.
- Postman's Walk: an element with only two parts: the foot and hand line. The foot line is a taut cable while the hand line is a thick rope with plenty of slack in it. The key to a successful and sturdy traverse is counterintuitive; climbers must arrange themselves so they lean their bodyweight against the hand line, which means they will lean out slightly past their own feet. Although thrilling (or scary!) the more weight the climber puts against the hand line, the less slack (potential for wiggle and movement in the rope) there will be as they move across the element.
- The Balance Beam: though most participants agree that they can easily walk across a large log, at 35 feet climbers find the challenge largely one of overcoming their mental fears.
- Whoa-Buddies!: comprised of a series of swings used like stepping stones as climbers traverse from one platform to another. A favorite element for the daring climbers in any group.
- Giant Slalom: participants walk along a cable foot line, using vertical four-by-fours for hand holds. The catch is that the first two four-by-fours are just out of reach for participants who are shorter than 6 feet, which means that for a split second, climbers are without anything to hold onto as they move from one four-by-four to the next.
- Spaghetti Run: similar to the grapevine, except the ropes for the climber's hands drop down from overhead and are tied in to the element's foot line. There is still plenty of slack in the hand lines, which makes for an exciting, wiggly experience, but for the most part, the hand lines remain anchored within the climber's reach.
- Flea Jump: an element where participants jump from one platform to another that is six feet or so away and 35 feet off the ground. Were the challenge to jump the same distance on the ground it might not be that intimidating, however at a height of 35 feet, the jump through open space between two free-standing platforms takes on a new dimension of mental difficulty.
Exiting the Course
- Zip Line: participants are clipped into the safety system of metal pulleys and tubular webbing and glide along a cable until gravity eventually brings them to the lowest point on the zip line, where they are detached by teammates and friends. For many participants, riding out on the zip line is the frosting on the high ropes cake!
- Belayed Lower: a staff member slowly lowers the climber to the ground using a rope that runs through a friction/breaking device. Instances that might warrant a belayed lower would be safety or health concerns, poor weather conditions, the climber's emotional state or the participant's choice to not exit via the zip line.