Back to Basics
July 5, 2018 by Don Gentle
It was a crazy weather in the early morning today. We had two different thunderstorms come through in the early hours, well before the wake-up bell. It was sort of strange for that to happen here so early in the morning. By breakfast time the sun was out and all was well. If you watch the weather at all like I do, then you may have noticed this odd east to west weather pattern we have also had the last two days. Weather is important to us up here at 3000 ft. Today it was beautiful! The sun came out and life was good!
Daily camp life was back to normal today. We had a few trips head out into the forest and rivers. Most of the guys were back and focused on their activities. I really enjoyed the instruction and just plain enjoyment I witnessed around camp. You need to look through these pictures and check out the skills these boys are working on today. I spent some time with a group of mountain bikers for an hour this afternoon. They must have felt like rock stars as I stalked them with my long lens for the entire hour. I was super impressed with the instruction and the skills. It’s a lot more than just jumping on a bike and heading down a trail. That is pretty much the best way to get hurt. Even this oldest group of boys benefitted from some focused skill development on our grassy campfire hill to work on some cornering before hitting a few laps on one of our many mountain bike trails. The lessoned proved to work very well. I enjoyed watching the guys rip it up through the banked turns and catch some air over the rollers. Of course, our 1000-acre facility doesn’t hurt. The fact that these boys could hit some great trails right here in camp without ever having to jump in the van makes a big difference. You can’t beat getting in a solid 50-minute ride right here in camp and then not miss your paddling class. For me, the magic is in the staff we have here. We have a fantastic leadership group in mountain biking once again this year. Our MTB head is also a father of two boys and has spent the last couple of winters working with Carmicheal Training Systems, who opened their eastern office right in Brevard. It sure is a great activity here at High Rocks. There are many more here at camp that have the same spirit and progression. I just happened to be around this one today.
Our first kayaking group hit the Tuckaseegee today. I put up some great pictures one of the staff took on the trip. It sure looked like a lot of fun! Don’t forget to share some of the great pictures out there in the world. If you are on your phone, once you hit the image it goes to a slideshow screen, just hit the “i” in the top right corner, then hit the three lines on the blue bar once you get back to the gallery looking page. From there you can either download (if you have a subscription) or just hold the image for a screen size save to your phone. Then you are all set to share!
We put a cool video clip up from the big July 4th celebration. Check it out on our Instagram or Facebook page. On a side note, I can neither confirm or deny that there may be some World Cup footage being seen here at camp. Do your best to keep the reporting on scores about a day or so behind. It will help the quarrels that may ensue if we were to possibly see some highlights here and there as a choice period option. If it were (or were not) to happen, it will just be some highlights as we move into the quarterfinals. We are human after all and some of us LOVE soccer :)…
There is so much fun happening here every day! Tomorrow will be even more eventful!
All the best,
Don Gentle