News from Camp: June 18, 2017
What a great week! As always, we feel so fortunate to work with such a wonderful group of young people, and enthusiasm has been high for all of our trips and activities. We had spectacular weather for our unit overnights last week and everyone had a great time on these first camping-out adventures.
Following our busy week of campouts and activities, we were happy to once again be all together on Friday evening for dinner, and the Lodges were exciting (and noisy) places to be. On Saturday mornings we offer Saturday Specials—these are activities which continue every Saturday morning during the camp term. Campers may choose to work on the coed Drama which they will present at the end of camp, take riding lessons, learn technical rock climbing, hike to different parts of the ranch, learn how to throw pots on the wheel in ceramics, and many other fun activities. On Saturday evening, the camps came together at Big Spring for an ice cream social and dance.
Campers in both camps have been offered a wide variety of all-day and overnight trips and a number of these are scheduled for next week. Horseback overnights, fishing all-days, mountain climbs and hikes to several spectacular locations are only some of the adventures that await. There will also be a busy in-camp program and some of our favorite special events. Juniors at both camps will experience another campout, more horseback riding, swimming, rock-scrambling, and a number of fun, creative in-camp activities. High Trails Juniors are looking forward to a tubing trip on the river while Junior Campers at Big Spring will enjoy the Bat Caves/Fossil Beds All Day.
Many of our older campers have signed up for SOLE (Sanborn Outdoor Leadership Experience) or CORE (Community Outreach Experience) next week—these 5-day adventures include service projects as well as challenging activities. One group will work with the Colorado Fourteeners Initiative to build trails on Mt. Elbert, while two other groups will work with CFI in Missouri Gulch. Two groups then plan to climb a Fourteener and the third group will backpack along the Colorado Trail to complete their week. Two separate trip groups have chosen a rock climbing focus. During the week they will learn climbing skills at our climbing site on Wild Goat Mountain and then venture off our property to climb at Turkey Rocks. These groups will come together on Wednesday to work with the Coalition for the Upper South Platte to complete environmental service projects. Both the CORE and SOLE programs are also offering 5-day Horsemanship experiences–these will emphasize improving horseback riding skills as well as community service.
The Junior Counselors at High Trails and Outbackers at Big Spring are also looking forward to their special 4-day trips this week. The girls leave tomorrow for Great Sand Dunes National Monument; on Wednesday they will meet the Outbackers in Buena Vista for an exciting day of rafting on the Arkansas River. Many of the JCs will then climb Mt. Princeton before returning to camp on Thursday. The boys will head out on Tuesday to camp at our new property at the base of Mt. Antero. Following the river trip they will travel to the Sand Dunes for two-days of sand surfing and exploration.
If you haven’t already done so, check out the living unit photos taken early last week by visiting our Camp-in-Touch portal. Our photographers are also hard at work posting new photos taken at camp during the past week. They will be available for viewing early tomorrow morning.
For more news of camp, you can follow [Sanborn Western Camps on Facebook] (https://www.facebook.com/SanbornWesternCamps/) and SanbornCamps on Instagram. We would love to have parents, friends, and family follow our updates about camp events, trips and activities.
- Jane
