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Today I went on a field trip the Ropes Course on Triple R Ranch. If you don't know what a ropes course is, it's a set of challenges, using ropes for certain obstacles, mainly to get you to work as a team and build friendship. There were two parts, the high ropes and the low ropes. The low ropes were the small challenges and the high ropes were challenging and made for fun. Both the high and the low take place in a forest.
I had already decided I was not going on the high ropes. I am not very daring and I don’t like heights or scary things. I saw the ropes and I more nervous. We did the high ropes first because it was too rain later and we couldn't do the high ropes in the rain, too dangerous. The ropes are tired to trees and staples in the trees. So basically you crossed from tree to tree on a rope.
There are only 8 people in my class, 7 boys and me. All the boys went on. The teacher and guide tried to talk me into it, but I didn't go. Once the last boy was up on the cables ("ropes" wink I finally decided to try. Climbing the rope ladder was the hardest part, and it wasn’t even scary. I almost gave up climbing the ladder, it was so hard, even one of the boys had trouble with that. I told ever one I wasn't going to go on and when I did they all cheered for me. XD My teacher was proud too.
The ropes were 25 feet or so off of the ground, not nets and anything, only a harness, lobster claws (hooking things) and a helmet. Falling wasn't scary, you had a harness, the feeling of falling was scary though. On the first set of ropes I was so nervous and scared that I was shaking a lot so the cable shook. Joe, a guy in my class, had lots of shaking problems. I made it to the second challenge. This one was hard, Joe feel even. XD The ropes where you hung on too for balance crisscrossed each other, so if you leaned back you had the sense of falling. I never fell through the whole thing, God must have been with me or something. The third one was so easy, you just walked across a little log. The next one was hard as crap, to prove that, Nicky toke like 30 minutes on it and feel about 5 times. He backed up me, Joseph, Austin and Jeremy and me at challenge 3, we waited a long time for Nicky. I was last and me and Joseph were talking. He was scared too, I felt better after that. XD
After Joseph went I went. This was hard, and luckily I was tall, I was able to hold on the cable above me, which was more stable than the little chords. That was hard, my arms hurt from reaching up high. I think I got rope burn somewhere along the line. The next one was hard, there were blocks off wood, such as for a rope ladder, except they weren't connected so you head to make it from one to another. Luckily I had long legs, not to say it wasn't hard or scary or anything...The second to the last was simple, it was like the first only you didn’t have ropes on the sides to balance you. The short people (which were most of them, no offense) used their lobster claw rope to get across, I used the cable above me.
The last part was so fun. Being the last one on, I was last to finish. This challenge was were you had to slid now the zip line. It was so fun ^^. All the guys told me to run and jump but naturally, since I have never been on a zip line before, I toke things slow and easy. I was scared at first because of the zip lines I saw on TV, but this one I had a harness. ^^;; It was great ^________^

The low ropes were next. First off we got to know each other by saying our names and doing activities with that. The guide (I have no idea what to call him) taught us how to use a spotting positions, which, is someone fell, we would be able to help them up and we wouldn’t get hurt, and neither were they. The next activity was walking across a swinging log, we all used our spotting position, but I fell. Darn those spotters. Just kidding. Then we went to the SPIDER WEB OF DOOM. That one was highly difficult at first because we didn’t plan things out and think ahead. After we reset a couple times we finally got a good plan. We had to lift people through little holes in the spider web made of ropes. I went through the bottom holes and lifted the lighter people up into the high holes. We couldn’t touch the ropes of the web at all, out else we had to send someone from the other side back. It toke a long time but we finally did it. Yay!
The next one was a boat, it was like a seesaw, we had to balance both sides. To overcome this we all sat down and let Joseph balance it. We had to balance it for 10 second and we did. Yay again! The next one was a bit crazy. We had to swing on a rope to a little wooden platform, not toughing the ground before we reach the platform. All 8 of us had to fit. At first we tried getting on others shoulder but lots of us got knocked off all the time so that didn’t work too well. Then we all crammed and no one was on anyone’s shoulder, and that worked. Hahaha. The next one toke the longest and it was the most challenging. This was called the “Lava River” or something along those lines. There were three ropes, connected into the shape of a Z. We had a rope to help us across the first cable, a paddle to help us in the third, and another rope to help us on the third cable. We tried many things but failed each time. Finally, Matt helped us out by taking the rope from the third cable and helping us across on the second cable with the rope and paddle. We had completed the Ropes Course! Yay again! It was raining a lot and I soaked, it was raining really hard at the end of the Lava River. I liked the rain so I didn’t mind.
It was a great time but now my whole upper body is sore. >_< Oh well, no pain no gain right? I think I burned off my breakfast AND lunch on the ropes course so ha. Hmm, one word to sum it up would be challenging.
That was my 8th grade field trip, at first I was afraid of it but now I love it. I so want to go again.