The sunlight infiltrated between the gaps in the trees and illuminated the uneven dirt path. The cold began to subdue as I uneasily walked through the forest, accompanied by about ten other kids from my eighth grade advisory, two teachers and a supervisor. It was a chilly day in Ullswater, Scotland, where I was on a one-week school trip with the entire Middle School.This was my second time on the trip, which was meant to put you out of your comfort zone and help you stretch your limits. As we reached the destination for the second activity of the day, I could see, in front of me, the obstacle. A wide, unstable ladder made of two thick ropes, it was by far the most difficult activity on the trip. The obstacle had 10 platforms and you were supposed to climb to the top one, although actually getting there wasn’t as easy as you would think. I’d heard about the obstacle before, and I wasn’t especially looking forward to climbing it. One of my friends,when they tried it, had told me that he and his three partners had only gotten to the second platform. Back then I had laughed, but now, looking at the obstacle from up close, I could understand why. It looked almost impossible to climb, given the huge spaces between the platforms. The fact that I had to climb it together with three other classmates didn’t make the task seem any easier either. Despite how unconfident I was about climbing the obstacle, I really wanted to make it to the top - unlike the other activities this one was actually challenging for me, making me want to finish it even more. As me and my classmates began staring at the discouraging obstacle, the supervisor split us into our groups of four: I was with Ben, Maria and Veena.



We walked towards the obstacle and helped each other put our harnesses and helmets on. I placed my hands on the cold, humid wooden platform and began to climb. Getting to the first platform was easy enough: we only had to grab onto it with our hands and lift ourselves up until we could use our feet to get upright. This was when the hard part began. I was standing on a trembling wooden platform, trying not to fall and the only thing keeping me up were my cold, aching hands barely clutching onto the next wooden platform on top of me. My supervisor below shouted for us to move up. My bright red hat, a bit too big for me, rocked back and forth in rhythm with the random movements of the platform, momentarily blocking my vision. There were nine platforms left and it already looked impossible: after all, we were already struggling on the first one! We all clumsily stood there, trying to keep our balance until we finally decided to try getting to the next platform.

“Guys what we should do is like hang on with one hand and then use our free one to push Maria up, cause she’s the tallest,” Ben suggested.

The rest of us nodded. We put our hands together and pushed upwards. Maria stretched her arms outwards, aiming for the platform on top of us.

“Damn it!” she screamed - we didn’t get her high enough to reach the next platform. We were getting tired so we took her back down and frantically grabbed on to her so that she wouldn’t fall. We stood there for a moment, thinking of what we could do.

We couldn’t think of anything else, so we just decided to try the same technique again. This time we pushed with more intensity, and lifted her with all our possible strength. The hard soles of her shoe dug into my hand as I pushed upward but she slowly lifted up, until she was a few centimeters from reaching the next platform. We gave one final upward push, lifting her up a bit more and she reached out with her arms and I heard the sudden contact of her hand with the wooden platform. She lifted one of her knees onto the platform and was then able to push upwards and get her other foot on it as well. With the help of Ben and Veena on the bottom, and Maria on the top, I also got up to the next bar, where I then helped the others get up. We started getting the hang of it and, although we still struggled, we were able to steadily progress from platform to platform, until we reached the 9th one. The climb to the last platform was about half a meter higher than the rest and, this time, we didn’t know if we could make it up.

I stared up into the clear blue sky and took a deep breath. Despite how tired we were by now and how difficult it seemed to get up, we were too excited by the fact that we were so close to the top to even think of giving up. As, I looked up at the top platform again, I took a moment to concentrate on what I had to do. Stretching up my right arm and grabbing onto the top platform for stability, I put my free hand out. With the help of Ben and Veena, I got Maria into position. We placed out tired, throbbing hands under her muddy shoes one more time and prepared ourselves to lift her up.

“3, 2, 1...Go!” we shouted in unison, as we concentrated our remaining energy into lifting Maria upwards. She flew upwards into the air, reaching for the last platform as we attentively watched her, desperately hoping that she would reach the final platform. This time, however, something unexpected happened ...she abruptly came to a stop - in midair. For a few seconds she stayed there, stranded in midair between two platforms, without any way out.

The supervisor, who was holding the rope attached to her harness, had stopped her from falling. We were all relieved. He now pulled on the rope, lifting Maria upwards, and she triumphantly got onto the top platform. Eager to get to the top as well, the rest of us then did the same, jumping as high as we could, until the supervisor then pulled on the rope and assisted us getting up. We exulted over our unexpected victory as we all stood on the uppermost platform, enthusiastically staring at the beautiful view that we could now fully enjoy. Climbing the obstacle had been hard and I had hesitated at first, but once we were at the top, I knew that it was worth the trouble we had gone through. In front of us we saw the big calm blue lake where we would go canoing the next day and around us was a thick green forest full of little paths in between the trees. We had worked together to get to the top and, although the supervisor had helped us in the end, we were all happy with ourselves. We looked at the view for a while, proud of what we had accomplished together. I realized that by persevering, we had acheived our goal and that it was all worth it in the end.