These Ropes Are Too High

Today was, in short, amazing.

It's only the second full day, but I'm loving everything about the city of Munich and Bavarian Germany. The culture is great, the city is beautiful, and yes, the beer is great. It's sad knowing that I only have three weeks here, because I feel like I could spend so much more time here.

Earlier today, we took a trip south to the German Alps to Garmisch-Partenkirchen to do a team-building activity on a high ropes course. When I'd first heard this, I wasn't sure what to expect, because I've never done anything like it. One thing I expected though, was heights, which had me nervous because it's always been a fear of mine. By the time we'd gotten to the course, I was about as ready as I'd ever be. The mountains were beautiful, the courses looked fun, and I figured that adrenaline would get me through the day. I was mostly right.

View from one of the easier rope courses

By the time we got to going through the courses, I felt ready to start climbing. I was nervous, but hey, sometimes you have to look your fears in the face to conquer them. Once we were qualified, I went with Zach to warm up on the beginner courses. The first one was easy enough. It was still a challenge, having never done it before, but I managed. For our second course, we went to an intermediate course, and still managed just fine. It was our next course though, where I started to struggle.

At the beginning, they gave us a description of the different courses and difficulties, and ended with the most difficult courses. The Black course, they described as "Ape's Paradise" because it required a lot of upper body strength and climbing. I figured I was competent and in shape enough to complete this course... Boy was I wrong. We started off fine, but after a few obstacles, things started to get difficult, and then just bad. On one of the obstacles about halfway, you had to use a set of three wooden & rope handles to swing across. I grabbed the first, swung out.. and dropped. The handle to the rope broke as soon as my weight hit it. I've never been more thankful for well-working safety equipment in my life, because the drop was just a shock to me. Luckily, the next platform was close enough that I could pull myself up and kick my legs to drag myself up onto the platform.

The next obstacle was pretty similar, but this time was just a standard set of monkey bars. Not too bad, I figured. I hit the first two fine, but when I reached out to the third, I missed and just dropped. Again. This time though, the gap was a bit too wide to reach the next platform, and I was spinning and rocking too much to be able to swing myself. Luckily Zach is a bit more experienced in ropes courses, and he was able to climb back and help me out. This is where team building really came in. The rest of the course went about as smoothly as imaginable, as I finished without any more major mishaps. The result? Aching muscles, a sense of defeat (I finished the course, but barely), and a renewed fear of heights.

Eventually, once I recovered a bit, I decided to make one more attempt at a course before we left. This course wasn't supposed to be difficult, but it was high, the highest in the park. I wanted to go up, because it supposedly gave a breathtaking view of the valley. However, my fears and fatigue got the best of me. I climbed up with a few others, but after the second obstacle, I just couldn't go any farther. We were already high, and were about to climb higher. That, combined with a swaying tree platform, just had me too nervous. I climbed back and climbed to the ground, feeling more defeated than before.

The experience in the high ropes course wasn't a failure by any means, as I did conquer one of the tougher courses. However, my inability to get over my fear of heights still bothered me.

After a trip to the ropes course, we were told we'd be taking a ski lift to the top of the mountain. This had me excited. I love nature, having previously had trips to the Rocky Mountains in Utah and the Great Smoky Mountains in Tennessee. Being able to go up in the German Alps was a special treat for me. The ride itself was long, over 20 minutes up to the peak, which was ~1800m high. And it was worth it. The view from the top was breathtaking, in every single way. No matter which way you looked, you saw something amazing. Every view from the peak of the mountain was incredible, you couldn't take enough pictures to truly capture it.

At the end of it all, it was an incredible day. Even with the mishaps in the high ropes course, it couldn't have been a better day. Will I be sore tomorrow? Absolutely. But it will have been worth it for the experience. What I wanted to get the most out of this program was a great experience. And so far that's exactly what I've had.