Photo Courtesy of Roya Rejaly
This week for Lifestyle Tries, Staff Writer Hannah Jang reflects on her experiences with UCSD’s outdoors just in time for UCSD Rec’s biannual zip line open house, coming up this Wednesday. Read her review of the Half-Day Odyssey and her tips for making the most of the Challenge Course.
How would you rather spend this upcoming Wednesday afternoon: confined by the walls of Geisel Library studying for your next midterm or ziplining through the forest by Earl Warren College? Personally, I wouldn’t think twice about choosing the latter, but all you dedicated scholars need to know that you deserve a break, too.
This coming Wednesday, Oct. 22, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., UC San Diego Recreation is offering its biannual zip line open house. With free registration for students, you’ll want to seize this rare opportunity now. If you miss it, you’ll have to wait until the next event in April.
The Challenge Course made its way onto my school bucket list during my first year at UCSD. What other university offers ziplining on campus? I wanted to stop by during their zip line open house, but my schedule didn’t allow me to. Last year, I got the special opportunity to tackle the Half-Day Odyssey and Lows Combo Challenge while skipping out on its normal cost. Albeit slightly different from the basic Challenge Course, I finally had my chance at the mysterious adventure hidden away on the edge of campus.
Going in, I felt unsure of how smoothly I would make it across the obstacles. I’m not too athletically savvy, and I’ve got a notoriously weak left ankle. My group was small, and the only thing we had in common was our residential community. Frankly, I didn’t want to drag down the rest of my team.
Yet, within the first 30 minutes of team-building, we got to know each other better than what any class icebreaker could prompt. Out in the woods, sharing our majors didn’t matter as much as the conversations we had about our preemptive fears, learning to trust each other, and what it means to ask for help.
After climbing a 40-foot net, we were surrounded only by eucalyptus trees and each other. The full course features three obstacles — contorting around wooden beams, absurdly wide steps, and criss-cross ropes — before you reach the zip line. Some teammates even opted to blindfold themselves for an extra challenge; we relied on each other to get across the course.
Those initial conversations about vulnerability and camaraderie really came in handy when I started to worry that I was burdening the team effort. Believe me, I was the individual who toppled everyone over in domino-fashion on the first obstacle within the first five minutes, non-blindfolded. I was obviously disheartened, but when I saw my teammates helping each other get back on their feet, I knew that we would get through the course together.
If you have time for some fun this Wednesday, you and your team should get out there for the full course. Why not? After all, the least that the ziplining teaser could gift you is an adrenaline rush to spur you into booking the full course — or into fueling some last-minute studying for midterms.
Though I didn’t exactly use my adrenaline to get homework done, I learned something about being a team player that a textbook couldn’t teach me. Trust me, you won’t regret changing up your Wednesday schedule this little bit.