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| Rope Bridge |
What we used for each bridge:
- 2 very long thick (30m?) length of rope to cross the lake
- 2 long (15m) length of rope to do each pully system. Each length must have no knots or frayed bits in it!
- 4 pulleys - the more 'holes' the better.
- Other smaller lengths of rope
- Sacking (optional) to put around trees if ropes are going to be rubbing on them.
- Scouts with a sense of humour and a change of clothes/swim stuff! (When I was getting my scouts to go across without trying to fall in, about 1/3 were managing to)
- Bounyancy aids, depending on your risk assessment of the water they will be crossing.
- Shoes - walking on thick pieces of rope barefoot can be extremely painful
- Strong people - for tensioning the rope
Another favourite of our scout troop which we do probably about once a year if we get a hot meeting.
Construction
This is the way we build it. Cos it works for us
- Get the two long pieces of rope across the lake. Either by taking them round the side, or I normally manage to persuade a scout to swin across with them without too much difficulty. On the far side these need to be tied loosely around a tree - one near the floor, one about 1.5m higher. Use sacking if you think the ropes will damage the tree.
- Tie two pullegs to a tree on your side of the lake. One near the floor, one about 1.5m higher. If you have no trees, you could try building an A Frame, but you'd have to support it very well indeed to hold the tension.
- Tie the other two pulleys to the other end of the long ropes going across the lake
- At this point, I normally tie a 'safety rope' between the two pulleys you have just tied on and something secure on the bank. This means that if the tensioned rope snaps or there is another problem with it, it shouldn't be too catastrophic.
- Starting with the bottom set of pulleys, tie one of a long length of rope onto the pulley near the lake. Then go through the pulley at the tree, and back again as many times as you have holes in the pulley. Use your strong people to pull the bottom rope as far as you can out of the water, then tie it off
- Repeat for the top rope.
- Whilst we are tensioning the ropes, I make sure there are no scouts anywhere near the pulley system - goodness only knows what would happen if the rope snapped whilst we were tensioning it.
To start with I only allow one person on the bridge at a time - it's a lot more stable. Once everyone has had a go, I will then start having competitions - starting one each end to see who can get to the middle first etc. If you've got loads of scouts why not build two or more bridges?
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