Happy Fall Y’all!

October 9, 2013 by Will Johnson

Not sure what things are like out in the rest of the world, but here on Cedar Mountain fall has rolled in with a vengeance!  The leaves have just started to turn in earnest; the sourwoods are particularly beautiful at the moment.  Brevard is bustling with visitors here to watch the color show, and up at Camp we are rounding out our fall programming with the last LEAP group of 2013!

Since Zach and Blaire’s wedding, we have enjoyed an excellent stretch of warm temperatures and beautiful days as school groups come up week-by-week to participate in our LEAP program.  For those of you unfamiliar with LEAP, I’ll give you a little snapshot of what goes after the two-week session.  We offer schools the opportunity to bring students up to camp for programs ranging from three to five days.  Some programs remain mostly in-camp for the duration of their stay, with students living in cabins and rotating through a series of half-day activities such as the ropes course, stream ecology in DuPont State Forest, and climbing at camp on the tower.  Other programs have a mixture of in and out-of-camp activities and enjoy all-day climbing trips as well as river trips down the French Broad.  Some of my favorite programs are the five-day backpacking and climbing trips typically undertaken by students in High School.  While LEAP is similar to the summer in some respects, the focus of the program is centered on experiential education and team building.  We’ve had groups up from schools in Durham, Winston-Salem, Tampa, Savannah, and most recently Birmingham.  If you know of a school that would be interested in a week of outdoor adventure at Camp High Rocks, put us in touch!  As we finish our last week of programming for 2013, we are already planning next year!

In other news, the camp crew is about to embark on our annual Fall Tour.  We’ll be posting dates and letting you know when we will be coming to a city near you.  Check the blog and our facebook page for updates and other fun things, and we’ll see you on the road!