The Ojai Foundation :: Programs

OUR ROPES COURSE offers groups of all ages, corporate teams, and families the opportunity to overcome personal limitations through exciting and rewarding mental, emotional, and physical challenges. With the assistance of our trained staff, such experiences can become doorways into greater self-confidence, improved ability to relate to others, and opportunities to make empowering choices.

Groups are brought closer together through "hands-on", shared achievements that promote a direct experience of collaboration and teamwork. Council and the natural world echo this theme of interdependence: Council helps participants collectively reflect on and integrate their experiences, and the support of the oak trees reminds us of our relationship with nature.

We design programs for intended purposes, including organizational development, personal growth, team building, celebrations and rites of passage. Our course is easily adapted to people of all ages and abilities.

Safety is an essential part of the entire adventure program. Proper spotting and safety techniques are taught and emphasized throughout the course. CLC requires that all ropes course facilitators be certified, and a combination of safety equipment (harnesses, belay systems) and clear communication between facilitators and participants serve to ensure the safety of all.

Elements The course consists of a series of log, rope and cable obstacles designed as an integral part of a complete adventure/challenge program. The "Team Challenge Course" provides a series of low elements that require balance, group initiative, and cooperative effort to complete. The "High Challenge Course" adds twenty to forty feet of elevation for participants to negotiate rope, log and cable obstacles while securely fastened to safety ropes called belays.

Dedication Our ropes course is dedicated to Karen Paine-Gernée who died of cancer in 1993 at the age of fifty-one. Many of her friends and colleagues have honored Karen by supporting aspects of the Foundation's work in her name. Karen co-authored two books, Emotional Healing and Secrets and was a pioneer in the field of adult children of alcoholics. Karen's authenticity and honesty touched many people deeply; she called upon herself and others to live in attunement with one's own sense of the larger truth.

The ropes course was a major challenge for Karen. Jumping off the zip line terrified her. Once a caring coach suggested, "You didn't come this far to turn back now." When Karen received a diagnosis of breast cancer, she recalled that advice. "I made it through the ropes course; I can make it through this cancer," she said. Karen fought her disease courageously with grace and determination, and then surrendered her body in a spirit of lightness and compassion. Her final wish was for youth to have an opportunity to experience transformation in a setting of natural beauty. Karen loved Ojai. The Foundation's ropes course was created in recognition of her vision.

>> Top of Page