When someone says the word retreat, you may picture yourself relaxing on an inflatable raft in a lake on a hot day. My senior retreat was different. The heat was there, but not the lake.
Every year at Crystal Springs Uplands School in Hillsborough, different grades go on different retreats. The junior year is whitewater rafting, but seniors venture out to a ropes course — an outdoor team-building activity that involves rope-climbing challenges in trees to conquer your fear of heights.
Some challenges are 65 feet above ground. In those cases, you have a rope attached to a harness on your back and someone holds the rope to prevent you from falling. I have never been afraid of heights, so I looked forward to this.
We arrived at our base camp near Pescadero, and then hiked about 20 minutes to a secluded campground among 150-foot-tall trees. We began with each of us saying what we wanted to accomplish. Comments varied from wanting relaxation to making new friends.
The retreat’s theme was talking to new people, so we were told to talk to each member of our class for about a minute and a half. The kids had been excited to do this, and judging by the tears and hugs, they felt just as good about it after completing the activity.
After a few hours of rest, dinner, and a campfire, it was time for bed. The ropes course was the next day and we needed rest. As people were falling asleep, one kid exclaimed that he saw a cat. We shined the light on the “cat” and about 10 feet away was a raccoon. Of course, everyone flipped out, but a teacher informed us we were in the woods, so there were bound to be raccoons.
About 20 minutes later, and with more people snoring, I thought I heard something licking its lips near my head. I turned on the flashlight, and about a foot away was the same raccoon. I flipped out a little bit more, waking up quite a few people. Finally I slept.
The next morning, after hiking a bit, we reached the ropes course and broke off into small groups, each assigned a counselor. Our counselor led us through the team-building events, including the passing of each member of the team through a “spider web” of ropes between two trees — without actually touching the ropes.
These events were fun and great for bonding because we all had to help each other. But after lunch came the high ropes: the moment I was waiting for!
One of the events was climbing 65 feet up a tree and jumping off a diving board with a harness attached to your back. An instructor on the ground held a rope attached to the harness to prevent a fall.
But it was still scary to drop off a diving board 65 feet in the air, swing around, and then get lowered to the ground. I wanted to jump many more times, but the bus was leaving soon, so I could only jump once. I was very disappointed.
Our final event involved having to push all of our classmates over a wall, approximately 15 feet high. Some stood on one side of the wall pushing the classmate up the wall while others stood on the other side to pull the classmate over. The teamwork was impressive: All of us needed one another.
In the end, we were filthy, sweaty and exhausted, but went home with a sense of accomplishment. We had encouraged each other to do courageous feats, and we had made new friends. Not only did we complete a ropes course, we fended off raccoons — and became more collaborative in the process.
