Adventure Camp @ XLRI : Experience the Thrill

Ever thought of rock-climbing , rafting in the turbulent waters, moving in the caves and rappling on a cliff.I never thought about it before joining XLRI though I had once read about it last year in the newspaper that XLRI is the first B-school to start such an initiative as a part of its course and now that I am here I got the opportunity to experience it and the experience was one of the most memorable ones definitely.
I went to Tumung around a month back on an Adventure Camp conducted by the Tata
Steel Adventure Foundation. Going on this Adventure camp is a part of the curriculum at XLRI
and every student has to go on such a camp during the First Term.Students were going on the
Adventure Camps in batches of 50 every weekend.I was on the last batch of students who went there and I had heard a lot about it from the batches who visited earlier. So I was a eagerly awaiting for the D-Day to arrive. And one fine Friday morning(28th July,2006 to be precise) we started from XL on a bus of TSAF (Tata Steel Adventure Foundation) who conduct such Adventure Camps not only at Tumung but also at Everest Base Camps.
We were singing throughout the journey while some of the friends were still half asleep as we were back from the Fresher's Party previous night. Many of us were straight
back from the Party after dancing throughout the night. XL offers various such instances when one big event is just waiting at the doorstep after another and this was yet another similar occassion indeed.
We reached Tumung( a very small hamlet) located in the remote Jharkhand area. The area was hilly with big boulders and rocks all around.Nearby was a big lake and the scenery was
picturesque with lush green fields around. We reached the place where we all were addressed by the Head Instructor.He briefed us about the objective of conducting the camp, the use of such camps in corporate's lives, dos and donts, what to expect and how to go on performing activities with care. At this point we were split up into small teams of 6 each. Each team of 6 was a unit now and was supposed to perform different activities together.
It all started with certain games like passing the pillow, crossing the brick maze.These games helped the teams to get into the thinking mode and work like a team on different strategies. The teams were interacting with each other on each and every strategy and move and soon we were all charged for the things to come. There were team leaders assigned from among the team members for every team for different activities and it was in one sense a test of leadership skills too. Next we were shown the obstacle course which every team was expected to perform. It comprised of a series of 8 obstacles --- Trolley, Rope Walking, Net Climbing, Crawling, Passing through the tyres, Monkey crawling, crossing a small cave and then the Tarzan Swing. The activities involved speed and stamina with continuous running as the teams were competing with each other and had to complete the series of activities together in the minimum time. Xlers have been making and breaking records in these adventure camps as we were told by TSAFand every batch was performing better than the previous one.The first day we did those activities in 19 mins. Next day we were supposed to beat ourselves and we did it in by doing that in just 12 mins(another record was set). Every team improved in the performance by leaps and bounds.
And then we learnt the various rock climbing techniques which involved climbing different cliffs and boulders. I remember climbing places which I would never have imagined to do in the wildest of my dreams and discovering that its not so difficult as I thought to be. But rains also made things difficult as clawing the slippery rocks was more difficult.Still we managed to do the activities successfuly.
But the weather was not too easy for us. It was raining continuously and various activities continued even in the rain. Rain brought with its share of dunks in muddy water below the Tarzan Swings. The 2nd day we went for caving crawling and searching our way out of curves and bends in the caves and at times it we had to cross from the caves lying down in a single crawling posture. We had to move inside a cave almost fitting the size of a person and come out of it along with the team. It was a test of patience and carefuleness.
The most breathtaking of all activities was Rappling where we came down using ropes from an almost vertical cliff around 70 feet high. When we started with the activity we were
thinking how we are going to do that. One needs to walk back down the cliff slowly leaving
himself/herself down the cliff with back facing to the ground. The ultimate experience was letting your body freely move down and then coming down to the vertical portion of the cliff knowing that you are at a height of 70 feet from the ground. But we Xlers were courageous
and confident enough and some of us did this activity thrice even in the rainfall!!
After that the Orienteering began where we we were given maps and we had to locate
certain items in the village based on the latitudes and longitudes shown in the map. Time was limited and different points were alloted to different items. I had seen such things earlier only on Adventure shows and this was a new experience altogether.
The 2nd night was the peak of the adventure with rains pouring heavily for continuous 5 hours and all our tents were down. The one where all of us were sitting in the night was about to
fall and we managed to hold it back using several measures throughout the night. After all
it was an adventure camp and this stuff was more adventurous and trying then anything else.
The last day we went for Rafting at Dimna Lake where we had to make our own rafts with rubber tyres and bamboo poles and compete with other teams. The exercise involved constructing a raft, rowing to the other end of Dimna, coming back and dismantling the raft in the minimum possible time. This continued for around 3 hours and we returned back that day in the evening singing and laughing all the way back cherishing the memories of the camp.
How circumstances develop bonding is something we learnt on this tour at each and every instance. We also learnt the power of teamwork and strategy and the art of problem solving in the most trying circumstances. The biggest gain was definitely the mental strength which we showed and the extent to which we got to know our capabilities.And we proved once again that XLers can excel everywhere!!
To have a look at the photos of the Camp please visit: http://in.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/alok.beel/album?.dir=/7661re2