News from Camp: June 25, 2017

by Jessie Spehar on June 25

We climbed our first mountains of the season last week! A group from High Trails reached the summit of Quandary Peak on Tuesday morning while another successfully climbed Mt. Ouray. A group of Big Spring campers also made the long climb up Mt. Princeton on Tuesday. A High Trails SOLE Mountain trip climbed Huron Peak while a coed SOLE Mountain trip stood on the top of Mt. Antero, both on Friday morning. A dedicated group of High Trails Junior Counselors also attempted to reach the summit of Mt. Princeton on Thursday but was turned back by bad weather. Climbing a Fourteener is never easy and all of these successful climbs are a tribute to excellent staff leadership and enthusiastic, persistent campers. In addition to the climbs, we enjoyed many other amazing trips last week— fishing adventures, river trips, horseback rides, fossil digging, wonderful hikes, rock climbing, bike riding, and much more. Everyone returned to camp Friday night excited by their adventures and happy to be back with friends at camp for the weekend. We have had a busy weekend. Yesterday’s Saturday Special Activities were fun in the morning; in the afternoon, we had an extremely exciting coed carnival that included cotton candy, sno cones, and popcorn in addition to many games and carnival events. The dance had a Tropical theme so the costumes were colorful and fun. Today, we prepared for next week’s trips, and both camps will end the day with our traditional vespers services. The boys climb to the top of Little Blue for this special celebration and the girls go to “Sunday Rocks” on B-Bluff. We were sad to see our First Term Juniors depart today—they have been a wonderful group, and we are grateful for our time together. We look forward to greeting our Second Session Junior campers on Tuesday. Next week the girls will leave camp for three-, four- and five-day trips. Some will head out on horse pack trips; others have chosen four- and five-day high mountain backpacks into some of Colorado’s most pristine wilderness. Other trips will be based in spectacular alpine areas like Leavick Valley and Kite Lake. Many groups will have the opportunity to climb mountains, and we know that our summit count will grow. Big Spring has planned an exciting program of overnights and all-day trips including mountain climbing trips to Quandary Peak, La Plata Peak, and Mts. Shavano and Tabeguache. The boys will also be horseback riding, fishing, mountain biking, rock climbing, canoeing, camping on the ranch and visiting Cripple Creek. Their “long trips” are scheduled for the week of July 3.
We will post photos from the week on Camp in Touch tomorrow morning. Keep watching our Facebook page too, as we will share a few highlights throughout the week.

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Jessie Spehar
About Jessie Spehar

Jessie began her career at camp as a counselor in 2006 and returned each subsequent summer, taking on more responsibilities each year, including those of Camp Photographer and Supervisor of Canoeing and River trips. She joined the year-round team in 2013 as Marketing Director for the camps. Jessie has a B.A. in Elementary Education and an M.A. in Special Education and taught for 4 years before joining the COEC full-time staff. Stuffing M&Ms into marshmallows prior to roasting them, sitting in a canoe or her SUP board on top of the water and photographing everything are some of Jessie’s biggest joys.