Flagstaff Extreme Ropes Course

[Coach]

Not sure what set the fire under my wife a couple years back, but she's got the canyoneering bug like I have the hunting bug. I had a previous post of some of our slot canyon adventures in Southern Utah.

 

http://www.coueswhitetail.com/forums/topic/41312-back-from-utah/?hl=%2Bback+%2Bfrom+%2Butah

 

 

At this point we've at least scratched the surface of slot canyon hiking in Utah. Ding and Dang, Spooky and Peek-a-boo, some rappelling around Moab.

 

 

Carrie now has some much tougher adventures for us in mind, so she, along with her mom, enlisted the whole family in the Flagstaff Extreme Rope Course, just to see what we could do, and what we need to work on.

 

For what it's worth, only around 20% of people who attempt to do all four courses actually make it through all of them. The day we did it, there was lightening close enough to shut down the course just as we were finishing the second, or "Blue" course. In all honesty, I was pretty tired already from having done the first two "easy" courses.

 

But my kids were busting through the courses, and my mother-in-law, who actually planned this whole thing were ready to re-do the blue course, and move on to the red and black.

 

As a family, we have done some pretty decent canyoneering:

 

But to me, this was totally different. It look a LOT of upper body strength, a lot of hand strength, and a lot of balance. By the end of the blue course, my hands wouldn't even work any more. They were so cramped up, I couldn't extend my thumbs or fingers.

 

At the end of the day, my 3 sons, my wife, and my late-60's mother-in-law, and even myself, made it through all 4 courses, repeating the second or "blue" course.

 

 

 

Carrie's Mom - late 60's what a bad-butt grandma! Check out those biceps!

 

 

My old-man self trying to navigate one of the medium obstacles:

 

 

 

I don't even have pictures of the obstacles at the upper end of the red and black courses. I was literally too wiped out to get pix. On Red you have to do as crazy balancing act on swinging logs that force you to switch your weight back and forth.

 

 

On Black, you don't just have the swinging log footholds, you literally step into iron rings suspended by a rope, while you are close to 60 feet up.

 

 

 

It's a really fun course, at the beginning, and at some point you have to choose whether it is worth it to go all the way through. For younger folks in really great shape, it's probably fairly easy. Once you get up there in years and start to lose that core and upper body strength, it can be a real challenge.

[AZ_SAWBUCK]

Congratulations to you your family on your accomplishment. Spending time with loved ones in the outdoors are some of the best times!

[Coach]

Had to fix up the post. Somehow, all the pictures ended up in a post without text, and the text ended up in a post without pix