TGIF at Camp!

It is hard to believe that we are already wrapping up the first Friday of the session. A
week has flown by in a way that only camp can do.
Today promised that same bustling activity with our cabin overnighters returning in the early morning hours, clearly feeling like they had conquered the experience though were excited about a big, hot breakfast.
Cinnamon toast, eggs, sausage, cereals, fruits, yogurts and more greeted camp to get
the day going. That was a nice way to start a morning that was lightly drizzling before more serious rain came along. The great thing to see was that the rain didn’t diminish the enthusiasm in camp, just shifted its location for a few activity hours.
Crafts was producing some really cool felted animal creations as pottery worked on
building bowls. Climbing was working the inside walls of the tower, the range was
shooting, and tennis alternated between the courts, the field, and then the gym as rain intensity dictated.
Hikers decided to embrace the wet weather as an opportunity and explored some of our streams’ for macro-invertebrates, with a couple fair sized crawfish providing some
exciting moments while capturing.
One activity that also was loving the rain was fishing. It is a popular choice for our
campers who sign up with a wide range of previous experience. Our counselors will
work them through tying knots, understanding casting methods, and ways to read fish habitat and bait that may be more likely to draw attention. Once campers are armed with knowledge, they spread out around a good piece of our lake shore, and sometimes even take a canoe out for some harder-to-reach spots. The camp lake contains both bluegill and large mouth bass. The bluegill tend to be a more frequent catch, and prove to be a surprising fight on the line. Our bass often are more elusive, with some truly large specimens swimming into view just long enough to really fire up the crowd. Here is a picture of one such that was caught today!
With all the fun going on in camp, there were also a number of out of camp trips that
rolled out. The paddlers took a crew over to Section 8 of the French Broad for a fun day on water that is new to many of our boys. It is one of our great fortunes to be in an area with so many different whitewater options that we can continue to surprise even our veteran camper boaters!
Climbers also had a fun trip that focused in on some long rappels near a waterfall.
Routes were set even in wet weather and the guys had a great time adventuring in
Pisgah. A group of hikers went higher up in Pisgah to Black Balsam for a loop. Typically this would result in huge far-off views except today was so socked in with clouds that it felt like they were completely isolated from the rest of the world. Very different experience, but one they were talking about at dinner. Not to be outdone, our mountain bikers headed over for a morning ride in Dupont that turned into an epic mission through rain, mud, etc. Those guys took a moment to clean up before  their well-deserved lunch,

but not before they made sure to be scene in their mud-spattered glory!
The skies cleared in the afternoon and made for a gorgeous evening after dinner. Lots
of shouts on the waterslide, games on the fields, and the gym was rocking. An evening snack hit just right even an hour after dinner and then it was back for showers and settling in for the night.