A ropes course that immerses students in team bonding and nature restarted operations underneath the shade of the Mount Vernon Campus’ trees last month.
The GW SUMMIT Outdoor Challenge Course celebrated its reopening in September after being closed for over five years, offering GW groups ranging from student organizations to department faculty and staff the opportunity to participate in community-building activities on the Vern. The course features 14 ropes elements and was relaunched by officials to be a team-building activity for campus communities, with each station being named after topics related to George Washington, like Washington’s Crossing the Delaware, where teams use two narrow boards to move a group across three wooden platforms.
Located between Hand Chapel and West Hall, the course primarily focuses on promoting leadership, communication and problem-solving skills through physical activity. The course is open to GW student organizations and academic and administrative departments.
Other activities include Foggy Bottom Bivouac, a challenge where groups must fit as many people as possible onto a platform and hold for a count of three, which can be difficult due to its small area and to balance as well. Big George’s Ski Pole features a 10-foot-high post with a ring around it that groups must remove without touching the pole, like the board game Operation. The Colonial Crevasse is an obstacle where two equal-sized groups on opposite ends of narrow boards must switch places without stepping off, a challenge for sure.
Mount Summit is the course’s signature obstacle, where groups must work together to climb a smooth-sided wall, requiring trust and logical planning.
Officials held the course’s grand reopening on Sept. 5, where students could test out obstacles and learn more about the course. The course had a new edition since its 2020 closure, the “Whale Watch,” which makes participants steady themselves on a seesaw-like, unbalanced wooden platform.
GW spokesperson Skyler Sales said the Summit Low Ropes Course was closed in March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic and underwent renovations earlier this year that lasted multiple weeks. Sales said the Summit is available to rent for GW students, nonprofit, community and corporate groups, as well as GW faculty, staff and affiliates.
“The Summit has 13 unique elements and offers participating groups and individuals a unique opportunity to develop and strengthen team-building, leadership, communication, and problem solving skills, all in a fun outdoor environment,” Sales said.
Lucy Puentes, GW’s senior outdoor director and the course’s manager, said the course is a “unique asset” to the campus, as there are no other low ropes courses in the District. Puentes said construction of the course occurred last winter, where contractors rebuilt old elements of the course and added in new ones to make it “usable.”
Puentes said in addition to her position as GW’s senior outdoor director, she took on the position at the ropes course, managing bookings and reservations and training staff on how to guide groups through the course.
“So the idea is that this is really student led,” Puentes said. “So there are student employees who have been slowly going through a training process to where they are facilitating to their peers.”
Puentes said the “funny looking” structures are designed for building teams, trust and communication skills. She said guides who lead each group through the course can tailor groups’ experiences if they have goals in mind, whether it be conflict resolution or getting to know each other, each custom experience will look different from the next.
“We really are intended for the GW community to help foster team building and belonging,” Puentes said.
Puentes said the course is hoping to attract more student groups as it establishes its presence on the Vern. She said because the course is lower, compared to the high ropes course at the University of Maryland, students can focus more on growing closer together instead of fearing that they will fall off.
“You’re a little bit outside of your comfort zone, but you’re still able to focus on what’s going on with the group, in addition to what’s going on with with your own navigating of the balancing and your feelings and all those components where you’re also thinking about that as well,” Puentes said.
Junior Addison Horkey, a student staffer at the course, said she applied to work at the ropes course over the summer, having previously worked at a high ropes course in high school with different courses.
“It’s a lot easier to manage, and there’s a lot less safety liability because you’re a foot off the ground instead of 20, which is what I did in high school,” Horkey said.
Horkey said her experience as an orientation leader this past year taught her team-building and self-discovery exercises she has applied to her work at the Vern’s ropes course. She said she is continuing to facilitate conversations and bonds with GW students, like she did as an orientation leader with student groups who participate in the course.
“It’s a challenge, and we adopt the ‘challenge by choice’ mantra is our thing, where it’s like, obviously you’re not comfortable doing something,” Horkey said. “We’re not going to force you to do it.”
She said although students cannot visit freely, the ropes course’s first group to visit was a living and learning community on the Vern. She said the focus on team building combined with their shared academic interest “makes sense” and allows them to learn more about each other.
Horkey said due to GW students being “very one-track minded,” prioritizing their careers, it can give students a feeling of solitude. She said the ropes course avoids this mindset because the activities require participants to collaborate to succeed in each challenge.
“I think that the importance of the ropes course is that all of the activities cannot be completed by one person,” Horkey said. “You are just physically unable to. There’s a lot of reliance on other people, both their ideas and their input and also physically their support for your safety.”
