Military Reaction/Obstacle Courses

Welcome to our Reaction/Obstacle Course division. Thank you for visiting our site to learn more about our company and the services we provide for the military and law enforcement agencies. If you have further questions and would like to discuss the prospect of building a reaction/obstacle course on your site, please contact us. We would love to hear from you.

Reaction/Obstacle Courses–also known as military reaction/obstacle courses, confidence courses, air assault courses or leadership reaction courses–are designed to develop and evaluate leadership skills and help build teamwork. Participants must demonstrate teamwork and initiative as well as good judgment while negotiating the obstacles. These courses help facilitators to provide feedback to their participants regarding their strengths, weaknesses, techniques and ability to adapt to complex and difficult challenges.

We believe that Adventure Más is uniquely qualified to build you a quality, handcrafted, hard-core, high-challenging, reaction/obstacle course. When it comes to being experienced in building leadership reaction/obstacle courses, various types of climbing walls and towers, suspension bridges, ropes challenge courses and zip lines, we’ve got the right stuff.

What Sets Us Apart

  • We are an award-winning, peer-reviewed, adventure-based company with more than 35 years experience in the industry.
  • Our hard-core experiences with adventure-based activities began when we trained in the military and law enforcement field. Our professional careers in adventure-based, experiential education began by directing programs in schools and other organizations which gave us a rare insight into the problems and financial concerns facing our clients. In other words, we’ve stood in your shoes!
  • We excel in craftsmanship, training and risk-management/safety services and are members of multiple professional organizations. At this time, we are the only company in our industry that is a member of all three industry associations. We are a board member of the Professional Ropes Course Association (PRCA) and a PRCA-accredited vendor, an associate member of the Association of Challenge Course Technol­ogy (ACCT), a member of the European Ropes Course Association (ERCA) and a former assessor for the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) in their Certificate Accreditation Program. As a member of these organizations, we stay current with all building and training safety practices.
  • We have an impeccable safety record, with no accidents since our company’s inception. Our comprehensive liability insurance policy, valued at $2 million, covers construction, equipment, training and annual safety inspections. The policy complies with all local and federal safety regulations for our industry.
  • We offer customized designs based on the programming desired and the site utilized.

Military and Law Enforcement Experience

Adventure Más was founded by Joel Cryer, who served in Southeast Asia as a Para-Rescue Technician (PJ) and as a member of the NASA/Apollo Recovery Team. Pararescuemen endure some of the toughest training offered by the military and are among the most highly trained emergency trauma specialists in the United States military.

Director Mike Barker is a former chief law enforcement officer and veteran. Since 1999, he has been serving as the Risk-Management Coordinator for the city of New Haven, Connecticut. Mike designed the first program in the nation to address the safe use of law enforcement personnel in work zones in urban or other municipal settings. He has more than 33 years of safety, building, facilitating, high-angle rescue and in-depth risk-management experience in the industry. Mike is a former USMC nuclear, biological and chemical warfare trainer. In addition, he is a member of both the city and local area UASI Emergency Preparedness/Homeland Security committees and is an authorized OSHA Outreach Trainer for both the Construction and General Industry Standards. More

Our experience as veterans with military and law enforcement backgrounds give us unique, personal insights into the training and building of these types of elements.

Adventure Más Construction Standards

Adventure Más exceeds industry standards when it comes to construction and materials. Although the aesthetics of your course are important, we take great care in the engineering of our structures.

We offer many choices in materials that are specific to your climate and usage that can also be custom-adapted. Equipment is selected to have a minimum breaking strength of 5,000 lbs., but often we exceed this standard. We work very closely with our manufacturers to custom-design equipment when the need arises. It is selected to be user-friendly, yet practical and durable.

Green Materials and Practices

We believe that “being green” is more than providing our clients with environmentally sound materials. It is also about superior construction practices and careful planning in order to minimize waste. As a practice, Adventure Más offers the following:

  • Lumber and utility poles purchased from certified, sustainable forests
  • Specialty hardware of the highest environmental standard
  • Environmentally beneficial and durable building materials
  • Metal materials recycled
  • Sites designed to minimize environmental impact
  • Low-maintenance, low-water, ecologically-balanced landscape design if possible

Site Visit and Evaluation

A site evaluation is one of the first steps you should take when determining whether to build a reaction/obstacle course. A typical evaluation with Adventure Más can be completed over a period of one to two days.