camp profile: adventure classic
[Note: I've tried to fix the spacing and fonts four times now, and they refuse to be consistent. Grrr.]
Adventure Classic
I asked Ben* to write something about his Adventure Classic adventures. Following is Ben's Adventure Classic story (with help from Jesse).
It was as much an adventure for the leaders as the kids (what a cliché).
Playing Mafia around the fire one night, we were all laughing so hard we couldn’t breathe. Another night started cutting wood at five, and did nothing but cook and eat hobos until it was totally dark and we could barely pack up the coolers, from lack of light and too much delicious food.
There were times of peace, when early in the morning before the sun had made it over the mountains, bleary eyed we watched the mist on the river and between the trees slowly fade.
There were times when in a moment of either insanity or inspiration, a camper vowed to chop, against the grain, through a stump too large for him to get his arms around. In any spare time for the rest of the week we would all gather around and watch him hack away at that stubborn thing, chanting “ONE MORE SWING! ONE MORE SWING!” until the night before we had to leave, with great ceremony and fanfare, he finished it off. Or when, trembling and sweating, a camper who was terrified of heights fought her way up a fifty foot cliff and rappelled back down. Her grin shone through exhaustion: she had left her fear behind to do that. Or when the rafts were dragged out of the river and we walked upstream a hundred metres or so to swim through the rapids. Fighting to think of anything other than the cold piercing our skin and minds and swimming like mad to make it back to the rafts.
So do you believe me yet? Is it starting to sound like a real adventure for everyone? I got to be a councillor for the three weeks it ran last summer and in those 20 odd days, I grew more than I had during all the time I spent at university the year before. I regret nothing from the experience. I was shown the proper technique for building and anchor when belaying, and I learned that kids have so much courage than I ever believed, that they can show when they are tested. I was taught how to build an A-frame out of a tarp not much else, and I was taught that kids can be tremendously resourceful when pushed. I was awed by the terrifying beauty of nature and I think some of the campers were too.
There were the most random things. Someone coined the title “Fire Whisperer” for the person who was followed around the campfire by the smoke. No matter where the poor kid sat, the smoke would find him or her."
I should probably be plugging the featured activities too. They were, after all, honestly amazing. Top roping on real rock with the real life Superman, Rolf. Hiking to the natural waterslides. Climbing around Bighorn Falls. And of course the white-water rafting, cliff jumping, and rapid swimming with the totally insane Mukwah guides.
Intense, rad, stoked, awesome, sweet. We throw these words around a lot here, partly because we like the idea of sounding like surfers, and partly because camp can quite often be those things. The problem is that it makes it hard to emphasize how good the Adventure weeks were for me, the other councillors and, I absolutely believe, the campers. Maybe I’ll try the word elevating. I’m going to be tempted to jokingly use it for the climbing wall and high ropes course on the main site, but I’ll try not to and save it for the unique experience those weeks were for me.
* Ben's our Assistant Program Director this summer and Jesse's our Outtrips Coordinator; last summer, with Becca, they led Adventure Classic. Jesse will be leading Adventure again this summer. Ben and Jesse will together be featured in a future "introducing ..." blog post.
posted by kerry.
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