Wednesday, May 20th

Day 3: Rock-wall climbing

On Wednesday, May 20th we revisited Camp Bernie, however this time we did various activities much higher in the air than our previous trip. Upon arrival, we actually did more Geocaching, only we were searching for facts about countries around the world. My team and I found the majority of the countries, so when we had to answer a short questionnaire we weren't completely out of contention. In the end, we lost by 8 points, so it wasn't really close.

Next we went on the vertical play pen, a obstacle course in the air consisting of ropes, wooden planks, and miscellaneous obstacles that you could choose between at the top. In this activity, we were placed in harnesses and served as the belay team when we were not climbing. The belay team was locked into the same rope as the person climbing so if the climber were to fall off the belay team could hold the person up. After everyone had a turn to climb we had lunch and then progressed to the rock wall.

The three different rock walls symbolized the three different difficulties. The beginners stuck to the inclined rock wall, the intermediate course was for those who had experience or who wanted a challenge, and the expert or hard course was for those who really wanted a challenge. The intermediate course was a completely vertical rock wall, meaning you had to have very strong forearms, unlike the inclined wall. The expert course was the same as the intermediate, however the expert had two boxes that required you to climb up the box in order to reach the top. The boxes represent the overhanging cliffs of a mountain. My group at the intermediate course did relatively well, and I made a conscious effort to display leadership by offering help, both verbally, and physically. As my fellow classmates and I take a trip to Camel-back tomorrow I will continue to display the traits of a leader and make sure the people around me are doing so as well.