Monterey Bay: The Magazine of CSU Monterey Bay Spring/Summer 2014, Vol. VII, No. I | Page 24

Favorite Activity
in the United States
(So Far...)
By Sara Santini

Photo Wassim Zoghlami

Photo Marilaine Savard

I wasn’t sure what a ropes challenge
course was, but it sounded like fun.

I arrived at the course, which was organized by Outdoor
Recreation and is in the woods surrounding campus. It looked
like a lot of high wooden pillars with ropes between them. I’ve
never seen one back home.
“You wanna try this one?” asked the course leader.
She showed me a pillar that was separated from the others.
It turned out to be one of the most challenging.
“So, what you do is just climb up to the top,” she said.
“It gets a bit wiggly and windy on the top, but when you get
there, you should stand up straight on the top of the pillar.”
“And then?” I asked.
“Then you jump!”
I decided not to think about it too much. I started climbing.
The only thing I could hold onto was the pillar; it had small
steps, so it wasn’t hard to climb. Apart from that, I just had
my security rope for getting down. I was on my own. When
I got to the top, it was kind of scary to stand up – the wind
was blowing and the pillar was shaky. I stood up and looked
around. The view was really cool: It was foggy, so all I saw was
green trees and fog. Usually, you can see the ocean from there.
“Now just jump!”
I looked down and realized I was really high, and I had
nothing but the rope on my back. It all happened a bit fast and
unexpectedly, so I felt kind of surprised to find myself all the
way up there.
But I jumped!
And it was so nice, and exciting. I didn’t even feel the im-

pact on my back from jumping, because of all the belts I had
on me. I slowly came down, and the girl congratulated me
and unhooked the rope from my belt. My legs felt a bit shaky
from the adrenaline.
The shaky legs didn’t help when I tried the next challenge, where I climbed up an even higher pillar and had to
get to the other one by crossing over a wooden log. Being
so high without anything to hold onto makes you nervous,
which makes you panic and lose your balance. I thought the
course would be more physically challenging, but in fact, it
was mostly a mental challenge of overcoming the boundaries
you set for yourself.
I really liked the one you do in a pair: You and your
partner cross the distance between pillars over a thin rope,
without anything to hold on to. In order to get from one bar
to another, you have to work with your partner — they hold
you while you let go of the bar and walk to the