GO-Adventures Team Building & Adventure

11/18/2023

We LOVE campfires! Whether we are facilitating a team building program or teaching an adventure instruction course in the woods around our challenge course, adding a campfire to the event makes it even more enjoyable. If we are planning a campfire for a group, they always want to make s'mores (naturally), and although we are happy to do it, our favorite campfire snack is popcorn! If you haven't tried it, you definitely should.

11/18/2023

With the thermometer swinging from high to low and back again, it gets harder to plan an outdoor adventure. Caving is one of those "outdoor" adventures you can count on to be available no matter what the weather is doing. With a year-round average of 50-55 degrees and 90% humidity, caves are a great activity to try when it is too cold to climb, but too warm to ski...

04/14/2022

Barriers to Communication - during yesterdays team building program, I tasked the group with an activity that included multiple communication challenges: one team mate could read instructions and then act them out to another team member who then had to call out what she thought she was being shown. This “caller” was directing two other team members who were blindfolded-but the caller couldn’t watch what they were doing. Very challenging and a good representation of simple
barriers to good communication.

04/11/2022

Worth it - It is hard to capture the feeling of accomplishment when you face a challenge and overcome it. Caving is one of those adventure experiences that provides a big challenge AND a big payoff. Cold, wet, slippery, physically exhausting, heavily teamwork oriented, and of course DARK. But when you emerge on the other side, you know you have earned it.

03/29/2022

Ropes course facilitation is a learned skill, and like any skill, practice makes better.

As the seasons move from winter into spring, we start getting back up there and preparing for what we hope will be a busy summer.

Last weekend we were training with Girl Scout staff and volunteers on their ropes course. The "spring" weather was more like winter, and we were practicing rescues in 30 mile an hour wind gusts and 36 degree temperatures. It even snowed for a few minutes.

Girl Scouts rock!

03/17/2022

Banding a Natural Fork Slingshot- having selected the right forked stick, removed the bark and sanded out the rough spots, final step is attaching the slingshot band to the catapult frame using friction wrapped #64 rubber bands. Then the slingshot will be ready for action!

07/08/2021

The noisy choruses of Brood X cicadas are over, but cicadas have left behind evidence: dead branches where they laid their eggs.

02/12/2021

Snack Hack - Girl Scout cookies can be hard to hold onto when your partner is a Cookie Monster. Especially if you both like the same type of cookie (Thin Mints). Here’s a tip that might help. When ordering your cookies buy at least one box of a flavor that your partner doesn’t like. Then hide a few of the popular ones in the unpopular box. Yes, some things in life are so precious that you will do whatever it takes to hold onto them.
I just hope my wife doesn’t follow me on Instagram...

02/12/2021

“How much wood do I need to collect?” Campfire success or failure almost always boils down to preparation prior to lighting the spark. Harvesting enough flammable materials, separating them into different types and stages, processing them into fire-friendly shapes and sizes, having a plan for what happens in what order - all of these steps increase the chance of a successful fire and decrease the reliance on luck. “Planning, preparation and practice promotes peak performance.”

12/16/2020

Portable Campfire -we ran a bushcraft clinic at a location that didn’t have a dedicated fire pit, so we tried out a “portable outdoor fire pit.” Simply a mat of steel mesh suspended between steel poles, the apparatus kept the coals from the fire on the mat, thus preventing scarring the ground underneath the campfire. The elevated fire lay also allowed plenty of airflow and helped dry out the wet wood, making it much easier to get a sustained fire. Pretty cool way to practice wet weather fire skills on the go.

12/16/2020

Caving is one of our most popular winter adventures. Unfortunately it is also the most difficult activity when it comes to managing the risk of transmission in the age of COVID-19. We occasionally organize guided caving adventures for small groups of 2 to 6, preferably families, roommates or others in your “quarantine bubble,” mandatory mask use and sticking to the tunnels that aren’t too tight!

12/13/2020