College instructors are more than teachers; they are also observers, and the observations they make can teach them much about their students--both who they are and what motivates them. As a college instructor and a certified ropes course facilitator, the author has had the opportunity to observe her classes and those of her colleagues at the ropes course on their campus. In all, she has observed more than 300 students approach the various elements of the ropes course with a wide range of strategies. In the process of facilitating all those students, she became so familiar with the many elements of the course that these elements, as well as the way in which students met the challenge of conquering them, became rather mundane--until the remarkable choices made by two students helped her to see the elements from a new perspective and left her awed by the generosity of the human spirit. In this article, the author shares an experience that opened her mind to the transformative nature of her ropes course work with students and reminded her why she does it.