GALLERY

#2   The Leadership Reaction Course reinforces formal leadership instruction.  It teaches and facilitates communication, team work, decision-making, confidence and leadership.

 #3   Leadership Reaction Course.  The leader must organize his team, get a consensus from the team on how to negotiate the obstacle, communicate instructions to the team, and motivate the team to succeed.

#5    Ridge Creek students are taught mountain rescue techniques using mountain climbing equipment.  Here, they are using an “A-Frame” to haul a fellow student to the top of a boulder.  Students are taught and tested on knots, belays and care and use of equipment before they begin the more complicated mountain rescue tasks.

#6    Master’s-level counselor, Cheryl Clark, LCSW, conducts group therapeutic counseling with student in the field.  An individual therapeutic treatment plan is developed and followed for each student.

#7    Wilderness Team Leader conducts a final inspection of a student’s gear before rappelling down a cliff at sunset.  Staff are highly trained and skilled in the activities that they supervise.

#8    Wilderness Team Leader coaches a student climbing a boulder.

#9    Students are presented with a wilderness casualty scenario.  Students learn wilderness 1^st aid and expedient methods of packaging and transporting casualties.

#10   Students carry a simulated injured patient during a casualty exercise scenario.

#11   Ridge Creek students rappelling down a cliff.

#12   Students at Ridge Creek are taught a variety of methods of improving cardiovascular endurance and muscular strength, flexibility and endurance.  Physical fitness instruction is conducted daily.

#13   Daily fitness and strength training at Ridge Creek may include upper body strength improvement.  Shown is the dip exercise on parallel bars.

#14   Cardio-vascular improvement is highly stressed at Ridge Creek.  Here, students conduct a slow, paced run with an instructor.  Students are given a diagnostic physical test at the beginning of the course and take another at the end.  Invariably, vast improvement is made contributing to the student’s increased self-esteem.

#15   Students love Ridge Creek!

#16   Students execute “piggy-back” rappel during a simulated casualty exercise.  The student must rappel his injured buddy down a cliff.  This builds trust in fellow students and self-confidence.

#17   Ridge Creek’s modern administrative building.

#18   Ridge Creek’s modern dormitory.

#19   Ridge Creek’s Alpine Tower is an integral part of the course’s extensive mountaineering program.  It allows students to practice climbing and exposes them to the same challenges and success that they experience on real rock climbs.

#20   The Alpine tower provides an opportunity for the students to enhance self-esteem, promote physical fitness, encourage adventure, risk taking and innovation, and learn lessons of trust, communication, teamwork, perseverance and accomplishment.

#21   Student negotiates a one-rope rope bridge that his team just constructed across a mountain stream.  Such activities allow students to practice the leadership principles they have learned throughout the course.

#22   Ridge Creek’s high ropes course consist of 10 elements.  In addition to the sense of accomplishment garnered by successful negotiation of these elements, there is a therapeutic lesson learned for each element.

#23   Mountain Rescue.  Teamwork, trust, motivation and a sense of accomplishment.

#24   The suspension-traverse or “sustrav”.  Students constructed this sustrav as a team, then negotiate it under the supervision of highly qualified instructors.

#25   Students are trained and certified by the American Heart Association on CPR.  They receive a CPR card when they successfully complete the program.

#26   Students learn about knots, belays, and mountaineering equipment in an outdoor classroom environment.

#27   Leadership Reaction Course.  Students must move themselves and equipment from one platform to another without touching the ground.

#28   Students and instructor enjoy watching a fellow student negotiate a high ropes course element.

#29   Students are preparing a “fixed rope” to negotiate very steep terrain in a mountainous environment.

#30   The “A-Frame”.  Students use leadership and teamwork to construct an “A-Frame” to haul themselves and their equipment down steep terrain.