Keeping Your Advantage: Terrain and You, Week II [Monday, Period 4]

[atreideslioness]

When students arrived in the Danger Shop today, they'd find it set up for rock climbing.

"Hello, students," Ghanima said briskly, giving some handouts to the TAs. "Today, we study mountains and rock climbing."

"The important thing to remember about mountains is that each one is different, depending on the size and location," she said. "High mountains, and mountains located close to the Earth's poles, reach into the colder layers of the atmosphere. They are consequently subject to glaciation, and erosion through frost action, and such processes produce the peak shape for which mountains are known. Some of these mountains have glacial lakes, created by melting glaciers. Mountains can be eroded and weathered, altering their characteristics over time, so even if you've been to an area once, it may not be the same as before."

"Tall mountains have different climatic conditions at the top than at the base, and will thus have different life zones at different altitudes. The flora and fauna found in these zones tend to become isolated since the conditions above and below a particular zone will be inhospitable to those organisms. These isolated ecological systems are known as sky islands and/or microclimates."

"Mountains are also generally less preferable for human habitation than lowlands; the weather is often harsher, and there is little level ground suitable for agriculture. At very high altitudes, there is less oxygen in the air and less protection against solar radiation Acute mountain sickness, caused by hypoxia - a lack of oxygen in the blood, affects over half of lowlanders who spend more than a few hours above 3,500 meters, or 11,483 feet."

"Today, you'll be learning how to scale these majestic landmarks." Ghanima gestured to the gear and the walls. "There's easy, medium, hard, and expert trails here today, you just have to follow the color-coded tape paths. Or, you can try making your own goals. Race each other, work in teams, or get a feel for some of the unconventional maneuvers you might have do in order to move about a mountain."

"I just ask that you warm-up on the easy and medium trails first, no matter how advanced you think yourself. I don't want anyone getting hurt during the second week of classes."

[Ya'll know the rules. The OCD is up, so you're free to roam!]

Comments

Sign-In #2

[atreideslioness]

Ascending to new heights!

Re: Sign-In #2

[puppy_fair]

Zack Fair

During the Lecture

[atreideslioness]

Listen to Ghanima, read your handouts, chat, look at the gear! Just don't let the teacher catch you slacking!

Re: During the Lecture

[puppy_fair]

Bouncing excitedly while he listened to the teacher talk totally didn't count as slacking, right? Because Zack was totally going to do just that.

Rock climbing! Awesome!

Re: During the Lecture

[weetuskenraider]

Tahiri wandered among the students distributing the handouts, and . . . oh, hypoxia. Hey, she'd had that once, huh?

. . . it probably wasn't typically as, um, fun as that had ended up being.

Re: During the Lecture

[cutsthestrings.livejournal.com]

She considered the gear thoughtfully as she listened to the lecture. This should be interesting.

Re: During the Lecture

[solo_sword]

This sounded like a really good class to Jaina. She never got a chance to do stuff like this.

...Something was going to have to knock her out of her good mood soon, it was getting scary.

Re: During the Lecture

[sorella-vecchia.livejournal.com]

Triela was looking over the gear, considering the differences between it and the stuff the Agency used for the same sorts of operations.

Re: During the Lecture

[saikyou-no.livejournal.com]

Mountains!

He knew mountains, even if the... space they were in looked nothing like actual mountains.

He glanced at the handouts, and scowled; it occurred to him that he should probably tell the teacher that he couldn't read English.

Re: During the Lecture

[kestrelswolf.livejournal.com]

Firekeeper stared at the handouts and made a mental note to ask Tahiri what they said later.

Re: During the Lecture

[formerbrat.livejournal.com]

Elspeth studied the handouts and the gear while listening to the lecture.

The Gear!

[atreideslioness]

Socialize as you get suited up! Try to figure out what everything does! There's a programed NPC that can explain things, or Ghani can try to answer your questions for you.

Re: The Gear!

[puppy_fair]

Zack really wasn't sure what the point of all of this equipment was, but then, Zack could handle a good chunk of the rock wall with a running leap, too.

Even so, he was gearing up. Falling from up there would probably suck, right?

Re: The Gear!

[endsthegame]

This could really prove to be useful, so Ender listened carefully while he got his gear together, absorbing every word and adjusting where he felt it wasn't quite right.

Re: The Gear!

[momslilassassin]

Ben pulled on the gear and smiled to himself. Most of the time his experience had been with a tow cable around his waist to stop from killing himself immediately. This felt a little more secure.

Re: The Gear!

[cutsthestrings.livejournal.com]

She had never studied this particular sort of equipment, but she had enough knowledge of the physics and the mechanics that she managed to figure out what she was doing by listening to the 'instructor'.

Re: The Gear!

[future_sandworm]

Leto examined the equipment available, and picked out what he needed.

Re: The Gear!

[solo_sword]

With something like this, Jaina was actually willing to listen to the explanation of how everything worked. It was just that she was already assuming she knew what everything did before it said anything.

Re: The Gear!

[sorella-vecchia.livejournal.com]

Triela shrugged into the gear with practiced ease. It wasn't precisely like the stuff she was used to, but it was close enough to be extremely familiar.

Re: The Gear!

[weetuskenraider]

Tahiri spent some time looking over the climbing gear; she'd rarely used as much stuff as this before, and really, when she'd spent a third of her life climbing all over the place in parts of Yavin 4 that she wasn't supposed to know about with little more than a light grappling line and sometimes not even that (she had so not been a model student, what with all that sneaking off) it seemed like a little bit much.

But, she supposed, if she was going to be the TA for this class she should probably use the stuff, so . . . looking it over and picking out what she was supposed to need it was.

. . . oh, but if you thought she was putting on shoes, you were delusional.

Look, if there wasn't actual ice here, it wasn't going to happen.

[OOC: Woulda edited that hours ago, but argh nothing all day but tiny phone internets.]

Re: The Gear!

[kestrelswolf.livejournal.com]

Okay, the gear was... mostly confusing. The most she'd ever used before to assist in climbing was a length of rope.

She also wondered if Blind Seer would need to 'suit up'.

The Activity: Rock Climbing!

[atreideslioness]

Mod your course! Go it alone, have a race, try a few different tracks!

Re: The Activity: Rock Climbing!

[puppy_fair]

Like Lady Ghanima had asked, Zack was making a beeline for the medium trail, first. He'd get in his warm-up, and then he'd give the hard or the expert trail a shot.

This was fun.

Talk to the TAs

[atreideslioness]

Once they ping in.

Re: Talk to the TAs

[weetuskenraider]

Tahiri was here! And looking like she was in a very good mood today.

Talk to Ghanima

[atreideslioness]

She's around, both before and after class.

Re: Talk to Ghanima

[saikyou-no.livejournal.com]

He had decided to wait until after class to bring it up.

Stepping away from the other students, he approached the teacher.

"Excuse me."

The OOC

[atreideslioness]

I miss rock climbing!

Please note, OOC information regarding the class is here. As I mentioned last week, there is no syllabus, as Ghani likes keeping people on their toes.