Life at Camp

ByMatt

I haven’t been very good at updating this or my livejournal in a while. I’ve been fairly busy for the past few weeks. I returned to my job at the mountain campus (www.mountaincampus.org, check us out) in the middle of March and spent the first two weeks cleaning up and preparing for the season. With all of the heavy snow this winter, we had a fair number of trees fall in critical places, so we spent the better part of a week removing some of them. It’s been so wet, though, that we can’t get to all of them with the truck yet, so there are still many downed trees remaining. We also got all of the tents set up and the buildings deep-cleaned so they would be presentable for a summer camp open house.

Last Friday, Steve and I went camping at Hone Quarry outside of Harrisonburg. The Forest Service campground is small and rustic, and nestled in a deep hollow of Shenandoah Mountain. It’s a beautiful spot that feels isolated even though it’s fairly close to civilization. It’s also not very crowded in the off season. We managed to choose the coldest night to camp. Temperatures dropped down to about 25 degrees Fahrenheit, which is the comfort limit of my 20 degree sleeping bag. It’s good to know the insulation survived the washing machine. In the morning, we hiked the short trail to a rock overlook and then tried to drive to Reddish Knob, but at 4300 feet, the road still had some snow drifts near the summit that were not going to fare well with my car. We headed down the mountain and went to Second Mountain for an afternoon of bouldering.

Last weekend, the new staff arrived for the start of training. We’ve been teaching them the ropes (literally) while playing on the elements and getting them set up for the new season. Training continues next week and we’ll get our first school group the week after. Here are a few photos documenting our fun.

Megan jumps from the Leap of Faith
Jon posing on the Leap of Faith
Steve climbs a tree
Mashawn jumps over the stream
Huck plays with a stick
Working together to switch islands
Sitting around the campfire

Similar Posts

  • |

    Fireworks in the Mountains

    A garden update from the last post: I’m happy to announce that the lettuce that the chickens ate down to the soil is growing back quite nicely and will be ready for consumption within a few days. And now on to the main post: Elk River hosts an annual Independence Day celebration they call “Fireworks in the Mountains,” but they don’t necessarily hold it on the 4th of July, but on the weekend before or after if the 4th happens to be mid-week. The event attracts a lot of people and the general store stays open late to sell its…

  • Maine

    I’ve been in Maine for the past 9 weeks teaching outdoor education at the Ferry Beach Ecology School. Its been wonderful up here, though its gotten quite cold rather quickly. On weekends I have been hiking up in the White Mountains getting some great photography shots. Unfortunately, none of the computers I work with have a firewire card I can use my scanner with. But new photos will hopefully be up before the month’s end. My White Mountain adventures have been strenuous, but fun. It started Labor Day weekend with Mount Lafayette, the 5200 foot giant at Franconia Notch. The…

  • |

    Aurora

      This story begins Friday night when I learned that a large coronal mass ejection (CME) sent a burst of solar radiation from the sun headed toward Earth. It was predicted to intercept our atmosphere on the evening of the 8th, producing auroral activity in the high latitudes. Given the size of this solar storm, as described by spaceweather.com, I was a bit suspicious that the auroras migh be big enough to see all the way down here in northern Idaho. So, I kept a watch looking for evidence of such activity. On the evening of the 8th, I checked…

  • The Last One

    Since last week, we had been down to three puppies. Three is much more manageable than seven, but still a crowd. In fact, having two out at a time was still a handful. Tuesday, I made up posters advertising the rest of the pups, and in less than 24 hours, we had two more sold. This left us with one Pink Girl to care for. Having one puppy isn’t so bad. They’re a lot more mellow by themselves, they don’t eat as much, and most importantly, there’s not as much pee and poop to clean up. Of the three that…

  • Happy March

    Wow, it’s March already. Yesterday, it began to snow. Let’s back up, all of last week, it snowed. We may have gotten a good combined foot of fresh, fluffy powder. We got a bit of a break over the weekend. Sunday it snowed a bit, but the accumulation wasn’t siginificant. But yesterday, it began to snow. In the course of the day, I probably blew 8 inches off the driveway, and the snow wouldn’t let up. This morning, I woke up to find that all my hard work of keeping the driveway clear was erased with potentially another 6-8 +…

  • Jerry Johnson

    We’ve gotten a lot of snow this winter. And then it got cold. Like, really cold. Night time lows below zero, and daytime highs hovering around 20.  So the only thing to do with this kind of weather is go swimming. Last year, we took Clara to a developed hot spring near McCall and she loved it. This year we decided to give the undeveloped hot spring a try. Spoiler: She had a blast. Our biggest concern was keeping her warm during the one-mile hike to and from the springs. She did fine in her little blue down suit, but…