Fear meets fun in the air

***image1***For a daring group of sports shop managers, balancing on a log on the ground was an easy task. Then they had to balance over a similar log – 23 feet above the ground.

 “It’s really easy if you get over the fact that it’s in the air,” reassured Andreas Puschnig, outdoor trainer for the company ProVenture Management, which runs a high ropes course adjacent to  the Dorint Resort Hotel at the Bitburg Stausee. It is one of several ropes courses in the area.

The course is reminiscent of a training area for power companies. Steel wires and ropes hang from utility poles that stretch into the sky, beams dangle in mid-air, bridges span high above ground. Thirteen exercises await those who master the courage to beat their vertigo.

On this early May day, 14 courageous executives had signed up for the challenge as a team-building activity. As one of them balanced over a steel rope in the air holding on to only two shaky cables, three of his colleagues followed his every step on the ground, belaying the chord that was attached to his safety harness.

“We got you, we got you! Nothing can happen,” they assured the climber. Slowly and with wobbly knees, the man on top set one foot in front of the other on the thin rope. The trees around him rustled in the soft spring breeze, and the lake glistened in the pre-summer sun. His eyes saw none of that. They were focused on the finger-wide cable underneath his feet.

“You’re almost there,” the ground crew encouraged him. “Very good!”

Finally, he reached the end of the line. “OK, you got me?” he asked downward.

“Yeah, we got you!”

He let go of the cables and slid his feet off the steel rope. Hanging only by the back of his harness, he hovered in the air, slowly approaching the ground as his teammates lowered him down. As his feet touched the earth, his colleagues applauded.

***image2***It’s this kind of spirit that has made ropes courses popular among companies.

“It’s about trusting others and working together,” Mr. Puschnig said.

Ropes courses have gained popularity in Germany in recent years as manager

training and as a tourist activity. The trend came across the Atlantic from the U.S. in the late 1980s, Mr. Puschnig said.

High ropes courses are divided into two types. Dynamic courses require a belay team on the ground. In a static course, participants are attached to a wire in the air that will catch them if they slip. While dynamic courses are better for teambuilding exercises, static courses allow more participants to navigate the course at the same time and are therefore popular in tourist courses.

Team-driven courses such as the one outside Bitburg have a minimum

number of participants that have to reserve the course in advance. Mr. Puschnig said his company requires a minimum of six people. 

For smaller groups and individuals, ropes courses, such as the “Indian Forest” in Vianden, Luxembourg, and the “Hochseilgarten St. Wendel,” 40 minutes west of Ramstein, offer similar thrills.