Monday, December 5, 2011

A Day of Rappelling


Members of all three cohorts along with some friends and family came out for a great day of rappelling at the Valley Green Inn, part of Fairmount Park. We spent the day learning how to tie seats and various knots, rappelling down the twenty-five foot “mini” rock face, learned how to put up shelter halves, and of course enjoyed some good eats with MRE’s (Meals Ready to Eat).

Our rappel master, Chris Lattanze, along with some of his fellow experts showed us the proper ways to tie our seats making sure we were safe for our rappel. Many were first time rappellers, some of which were faced with overcoming their fear of heights. We are happy to say though that everyone made it through successfully with no injuries!

Many of us also had our first experience piecing together shelter halves. These two-man shelters are made from water repellent cotton sateen fabric and held up by two poles being secured with a guy rope and stakes. Of course us ProRangers needed to make a competition out of it, with the fastest assembly time being one minute and fifty-five seconds! This practice will pay off once we’re at Leadership Camp when we spend a night sleeping in them!

Everyone had a great time and enjoyed meeting the newest members of Cohort 3! We all look forward to our next event and coming closer as an overall group. Great job to all who came!