Exfoliated Knees

This week I was working at the high ropes course at camp. I look forward to my day at the ropes course each week; in fact it's my favorite activity. This week we opened up a lot more of it than we usually do because it was organ transplant week, so the kids at camp were a lot higher functioning. As I was setting up the course, I got to complete some elements I had never done before, including ones called the catwalk and the Grand Canyon jump. The catwalk is a telephone pole that is about 25 feet up in the air and parallel to the ground. Once you walk across, there is a gap of several feet that you jump across to a platform on the other side (that's the Grand Canyon part). My jump to the platform was successful and I finished setting up that portion of the course.

-When I was done I had to jump back from the platform to the pole. That's a little more difficult because the pole, obviously, is round.

At this point all of the campers had arrived and finished their safety lesson and all eyes were on me. I made it easily over the gap and onto the pole, but before I could get my balance I slipped off the edge of the pole. Now, as a side note for those of you who have never been on a ropes course I was still perfectly safe at this point because I was connected to a rope that went through a pulley connected to a steel cable over my head and down to someone who had me on belay. On my way down, I somehow managed to catch the pole with my ankles, hoping that I'd be able to swing myself back up onto the pole and finish the element. Unfortunately, I just hung there for awhile and couldn't get back on top, so I just let her lower me down.

I came out of all of this completely unscathed; my knees had been nicely exfoliated and I had a few splinters, but mostly I was just disappointed that no one got a picture of me hanging upside down by my ankles.