To Ride, Shoot and Climb

Stopping by the Rockbrook equestrian center is a treat these days. All day long, it’s humming with activity, with horses being tacked up, girls in the stable club brushing and washing different ponies, and of course others taking mounted riding lessons in the rings. Sitting on the porch of the equestrian office, you get a good view of this. The girls arrive there first after making the trip down from camp and through the tunnel under the highway, and it’s there that they will put on riding boots and pick a helmet if they need one. For the lessons, this is also where they find out which horse they’ll be riding that day. Audrey sometimes will switch horses based on how a camper did in her last lesson, or if there’s a special request to ride a particular horse. At this point in the session, it’s taking less time to get ready for the lessons because the campers know what they need to do and how to help, for example by leading the horses to the ring.  Also, we’re seeing excellent riding from these girls.  Lots are posting perfectly, cantering confidently, and jumping joyfully.  And it’s spectacular to watch.

Our longtime archery instructor Chelsea (this is her 3rd summer in that role) is reporting something similar. She’s seeing plenty of girls really take to the sport, improving their shot and hitting plenty of bullseyes. We’ve all noticed that almost everyday Chelsea is announcing during dinner the names of campers “inducted” into the “Bullseye Club” for archery (there’s a similar club for riflery too, as you might expect). Archery is one of those sports that really grows on the campers. They try it, and they’re hooked, probably because with just a little practice, they can see themselves improving. When one arrow is a great shot and the next is not, it makes you want to try again. In no time, they are true archers.

Today Clyde and Maddie took a group of Middlers out of camp for a rock climbing trip on Cedar Rock. This crag is located on the southern edge of the Pisgah Forest and requires a long, almost 2-mile, hike from the parking pull-off area just to reach the base of the rock. Consequently, the group packed a lunch with them (along with all the climbing gear— ropes, harnesses, helmets, shoes, carabiners, etc.) so they could spend all day out there. This was a great idea because they could all climb multiple pitches. They set up a climbing route called “Oh, Mr. Friction,” which is a nice medium difficulty crack, and the “Orangutan Flake,” a much more difficult face route. They even set a third rope up on a short climb that’s not named. This photo gives you a sense of the challenge these routes provide. The girls really had to be strong, concentrate and balance up some tough stuff. And these girls are really good! They have excellent climbing instincts and fine strength/weight ratios. Most of the time they handled every challenging part of these routes. Oh, and by the way, every girl who climbed wore a helmet and was “on belay,” meaning she was being held up by a rope with a tensile strength exceeding 3000 pounds. The girls climb high, but they are super safe doing it. With all that climbing and all that hiking, it was a very big, and tiring, day out. Be sure to check out the photo gallery to see more photos of this trip. They’re great!

Summertime Sleeping Out

Backpacking and camping have been an almost nightly trip this week. Michelle our fabulous hiking guide, who is a Wilderness First Aid Responder and who has been a Rockbrook girl for thirteen years (she started at 7 years old), has been leading these trips. She’s been taking our Juniors in cabin groups, 2 at a time, out to the outpost campsite here on the camp property. After a short hike through the woods towards Rockbrook Falls, there’s a small trail that leads to a clearing below Dunn’s Rock where we have two tent platforms and a fire ring. The girls have a campfire, sing songs, tell stories, and enjoy making s’mores. All the girls from each Junior cabin plus their counselors go on these trips, and when it’s time for bed, everyone sleeps together, “slumber party style,” on the platforms. Out in the woods, armed with their flashlights against the sounds of the night and filled with nervous excitement, it can take a while for everyone to fall asleep.  But that’s part of the fun!  Michelle also took a Middler backpacking trip out into Pisgah Thursday night.  With their tents, sleeping bags and food (s’mores again!) stuffed into backpacks, they hiked about 2 miles into the forest to one of our secret campsites.  These trips are great opportunities to get to know each other.  Telling stories around the campfire and just sharing the experience overall, the whole group grows closer.

This has also been a week of tie dying in the “Hodge Podge” activity. There’s a lot of variety here as each camper twists and folds her shirt in a unique pattern and then adds different color dyes. After letting them rest over night, it’s exciting to untie the shirts and see how they turned out— vibrant spirals, bullseyes and stripes.

In the photography activity, Jane has been teaching the campers about stop motion techniques.  Working in groups of 2 or 3 campers, and using Play-Doh, the girls animated short sequences of photos which when strung together create motion videos.  This takes not only creativity, but real planning, a steady camera, and plenty of patience to accomplish.

A group of girls went rock climbing today with Maddie and were lucky to set up 3 different routes on Looking Glass Rock out in Pisgah.  Again, excellent weather, dry and clear, made the equally excellent rock even more enjoyable for everyone.  A packed lunch, complete with muffins, went along to keep up their energy, and when you check out the photo gallery, you’ll see just how well and how high these girls climbed. There are some amazing rock climbing girls around here.

Back at camp, everyone else got to dig into some of Rick’s homemade chili complete with all the fixin’s: diced tomatoes, cheese, sour cream, Frito’s corn chips, and our super stocked salad bars. There was some debate about whether the vegetarian or the meat version was better, but that was never really settled!

After dinner during the “Twilight” block of free time, a couple of counselors organized an open tetherball tournament for anyone interested in playing. It was the “triple T” (Twilight Tetherball Tournament). Should we add “terrific” in there? Paired up by age group, the girls took turns playing each other as the rest of the crowd cheered them on. Quite strategically, the counselors chose players to make sure that the brackets kept everyone involved, not so much to determine who “won,” but to see the girls enjoying the games. With the late evening sun setting across the valley, it was a beautiful summertime moment.

Rafting Spectacular

Today was the first of our rafting trips for the session, our big adventure out on the Nantahala river. We asked all of the middlers and seniors if they would like to go and came up with a huge list of excited girls. One option was to go over on Monday night and camp at our outpost. Rockbrook owns a 40-acre outpost camp located just past the Upper Nantahala Gorge in Macon County that is set up with simple cabins, a bath house, dining hall and campfire ring. It adjoins the National forest (about 2 miles from the Appalachian trail) and is only about 15 minutes away from the rafting launch site. We took 3 buses to the outpost to enjoy a nice dinner, time around the campfire with s’mores and songs, and a good night’s sleep out in the forest. The next morning we met our guides (Clyde, Sid, Billy, Sam, Andria and Leland) and launched the rafts for a perfect sunny trip down the river, complete with plenty of splashing and screams bubbling up on the rapids. A second group of campers met us for a picnic lunch before heading up to start their rafting trip in the afternoon. We had great weather on this trip as well, happily avoiding the thunderstorm that passed by to the north of us. These whitewater trips are loads of fun and for many girls a highlight of their outdoor experience at camp.

By the way, Leland and Andria have written several books on whitewater boating, one on North Carolina rivers and another on some of the best whitewater in North America. Check them out over at Brushy Mountain Publishing. Good stuff.

Meanwhile back at camp, we were rock climbing, really climbing. Our lead climbers, Maddie, Abby and Mallory organized several groups of Juniors and Middlers for a trip up to Castle Rock. Some of the girls who signed up were brand new to climbing, so for them, just fitting the equipment— climbing shoes, harnesses, and helmets — was a part of the fun. But of course the real treat comes from making progress up the rock, from getting past a tough part, and often, from reaching the top and turning around to see the view. Even the littlest girls are great climbers. They’re so strong and agile, and generally fearless, they just zip right up the rock with very little hesitation.

Dinner tonight was a surprise event for the girls. It started with costumes, as is usually the case at Rockbrook. This time we all turned ourselves into a giant game of Clue. Like the classic board game, versions of Mrs. White, Professor Plum, Mrs. Peacock, and Mr. Green could be seen eating dinner together. Afterwords, the girls broke into their cabin groups to play a camp-wide game of Clue where, like the board game’s mystery that’s solved by following clues discovered in different rooms, the groups ran around camp to find different clues. Each station, the group had to perform a task of some sort before receiving their next clue. Quick name all the RBC activities, or make up a song about trees, or stand in a human pyramid, and so forth. The clues led every cabin group to each of the different stations and finally to the solution— where Sofie was hiding. By the end, there were prizes for everyone, but it was Junior cabin 4 who ran the fastest and performed their tasks the quickest to win overall.

New York Banquet

Rick (here he is in this photo!) has been cooking some phenomenal meat over the last couple of days. Today he grilled 160 pounds of pork shoulder to make his own barbecue for the campers. He started by baking all that meat in a low heat oven for 10 hours, and then moved over to the charcoal grill for the finish cooking to give it a great grilled taste. We were shocked when the camp polished off every scrap. Everyone must have loved it, not to mention his homemade coleslaw and sweet potato chips. With cups of lemonade, we all enjoyed a picnic on the hill. Ah, don’t you just love summer?!

In addition to the climbs on Castle Rock, here on the Rockbrook property, we are also located nearby Looking Glass Rock in the Pisgah National Forest. Looking Glass is one of the best and well-known rock climbing areas in the southeast, with hundreds of routes that offer a range of challenges. Clyde and Abby took a group of middlers to the Nose Area of the rock to climb today. This area has fantastic views of the mountains as well as wonderful rock. There are a couple of easier routes to try, so everyone gets up to catch the view. Perfect weather made an even better trip.

This was the night we’ve all been waiting for, the night of the Banquet. The CA campers (9th graders) have been planning and preparing for the banquet since the very first day of camp. They picked a theme and revealed the costumes, decorations, skits, music and dance, and food to create a special evening for the rest of the camp. Their theme? New York City. They had taxi cabs, graffiti artists, broadway lights, soft pretzels, street performers, subway cars, lots of candy (of course!) and more. It was an amazing transformation and performance, and everyone at camp enjoyed it. The creativity and hard work that went into the banquet really showed. Thank you CAs!

Tomorrow is the last full day of camp for this session, and it’s gonna be a busy one!

It’s a Golden Day at Rockbrook

The sun was shining and the energy was flowing today at Rockbrook!  We started the day with a delicious Breakfast Burrito which gave everyone lots of pep to take on the adventures of the day!  Several trips were offered from rock climbing on Castle Rock to kayaking on the Nantahala River.  In addition there was lots of talk of rehearsal for the camp play, rehearsal for the camp dance routines and to top it all of- today was twin day!!  There were all sort of twin duos and trios spotted all over camp.

After lunch, the highlight announcement was Biltmore Train!!  Biltmore Train is an all you can eat ice cream buffett for the campers and counselors.  It is an old tradition at camp from the early days.  The Biltmore Dairy Truck used to deliver the ice cream out to camp for the girls to enjoy a cool treat.  Here is a great old photo from the early days of Biltmore Train.  Today the girls enjoyed choosing from Peppermint, Cookies and Cream, Vanilla, Chocolate and Mint Chocolate Chip.  Have no fear, for those who don’t enjoy ice cream we had plenty of popsicles to go around. It was a fun treat and it cooled us all down for a nice rest hour.

This afternoon continued with lots more action around camp.  The mermaid club members (girls who have completed 100 or more laps in the lake) completed their laps and were announced during dinner.  Their efforts will earn them a big Rockbrook Surprise!  Girls also took time to complete more friendship bracelets, walk with a friend, pick up a their tie dye shirt or glaze their pottery.  As you can see, the days are full at RBC!  We sure are having fun!

Square Dance!

A lot of climbing happens at Rockbrook. Everyday, in fact, there will be a group of girls climbing something, somewhere in camp. The most popular of these climbing activities is our Alpine Tower. It’s a unique high ropes course tower that is 50ft tall and is located in the woods behind our gym (here’s a map of camp to show you. The Tower is to the left on the map). There are dozens of ways to climb the Tower, from easy ladder-like routes to more gymnastic events that require more strength and daring. This makes it excellent for girls of all ages and something that’s always new exciting because there are plenty of new routes to tackle. When climbing, the girls are safely on belay, so they are also learning about the climbing equipment, safety rules, and belay commands. In case of rain, we can also move to the gym and hop on our climbing wall. It has several shorter routes up two faces and a corner. When the girls are ready for climbing a real rock, they can head up the trail above camp and climb our very own Castle Rock. There are six different fantastic climbs to choose from, right here in camp!

Another interesting phenomenon at camp these days is all the decoration going on. There’s evidence of creativity and imagination all over the place. For example, just about every wrist has several friendship bracelets adorning it (not to mention the “bend-a-back” bracelets girls receive as gifts for doing an unexpected good deed and the green waterslide/swimming bracelet). There are some really complicated patterns being made! In the dining hall, there are colorful painted posters from different special events and birthdays, and in the cabins, wonderful ceramics projects, baskets, drawings, and weavings are stacked up to bring home. I’m sure many will be treasured gifts for you.

Also today we had a special program available for the campers to learn about moss. A local moss expert, Annie Martin, came for the day to lead 4 “moss expeditions” where the girls hiked a bit to gather different varieties throughout the Rockbrook property. Then each camper made a miniature moss garden to demonstrate what they found. The different colors and textures of our local mosses make these gardens really cool.

After dinner, we another camp dance with a local boys camp, this time with High Rocks. Instead of modern music though, this dance was a square dance. We split the age groups again so our seniors could travel to High Rocks and their younger boys could come to Rockbrook. It took a little while for everyone to relax (seeing boys can jingle the nerves, apparently!), but once they heard the music and saw that it’s no big deal to be goofy holding hands and stomping your feet, and that it’s fine to “mess up” your do-si-do, the girls really had a good time. We took a break for cookies and lemonade, only to dance some more afterwords. And again for those girls who didn’t want to participate in the dance, we had an alternative; several counselors hung out with these campers and made friendship bracelets while listening to music. It was an exciting evening with lots of smiles and good feelings all around.

Climbing, Kayaking and Cabin Day

First let’s mention the muffins.  They were another Rockbrook original today, this time invented and baked by veteran baker Annabel: Tootsie Roll Muffins.  Yes, after some experimenting, she figured out how to include a piece of the chewy chocolate candy in each muffin before baking, and man were they awesome.

The morning kept us all involved in our regular camp activities. Since it was the third day of the sequence, we were finishing up lots of craft projects, improving our shooting skills at archery and riflery, and tackling more advanced outdoor adventure challenges.  For example, down at the lake, Kelsey held a kayaking roll clinic with the kayakers.  This is learning to roll your kayak back upright after it turns upside down.  If you’ve never done it before, it’s a challenging sequence of hip, head, shoulder and paddle moves, all coordinated to roll the boat up.  It’s not easy, and ordinarily takes lots of practice, but several of the girls made good progress and now can almost do it unassisted.

Tara, Katherine and Kiersten took a group of girls rock climbing on Castle Rock for the morning. This is the big outcropping of granite on the camp property that you can see from the hill. It’s just a short walk up behind the dining hall, and since it’s on our property, access is really easy and always guaranteed. We have 6 different routes established on Castle Rock, and for this trip they set up the 3 called “Whim,” “Wham” and “Bam.” Bam is the longest and most difficult of these three— about 90 feet beginning with a gentle dihedral that turns into an exposed face climb at the top.  The view of the French Broad River valley is incredible from the ledge at the finish.  Don’t worry; getting down is a simple matter of the belayer lowering the climber down on the rope.  There were several really good climbers in that group!

After lunch, we had our Wednesday “cabin day.” This is a time when we do special activities together in our cabin groups instead of following each camper’s individual activity schedule. This allows each cabin to decide what they’d like to do and to enjoy a little extra time together.

Some cabins just hang out and play games in their cabin, while others choose to go on a hike to Rockbrook Falls, or Stick Biscuit Falls on the camp property. Some head to the gym for a game there and others make some kind of snack in the dining hall… cookies or “Puppy chow,” for example. Occasionally, we’ll take an entire age group out of camp for a special trip, like today when we gathered up all the Seniors and headed to Sliding Rock. A brief thunderstorm moved out just in time for us to enjoy a few trips down the rock, and to stop at Dolly’s Dairy Bar for an ice cream cone before heading back to camp for dinner.

Oh, and speaking of dinner, it featured some of Rick’s homemade pizza. You should see the gigantic blob of dough he makes for the crust! Pepperoni, Veggie, Cheese, even Pesto; they were all great. With a big green salad and Annabel’s puff-pastries for dessert, the girls loved it! They even busted out the “Cook’s Song,” something they sing when inspired by an especially yummy meal. Good stuff.

All in all another great day in “the heart of a wooded mountain.” Feel free to leave comments on these blog posts. We always appreciate hearing from you!

Adventure and Ceramics

Early this morning, Clyde, Mallory and Lexie took a rock climbing trip over to the south side of Looking Glass Rock. This is probably the most famous rock climbing area in the southeast, a beautiful dome of gray and white granite popping out of the forest. There are several hundred climbing routes to choose from, including face climbs, crack climbs and even overhangs of varying difficulty. Some of the routes were first climbed back in the early 1970s, and now are considered “classic” by most climbers. Having all this variety is fortunate given the popularity of this area. Still, if there is a particular climb you have in mind, it pays to get out to the rock early. Our group pulled out of camp around 7:30am and since Clyde has more than 20 years experience climbing on Looking Glass, he was able to set up six different climbs. Some were a little more difficult than others, but all the girls were able to try all six. What a day of climbing!

Ah, lunch was another great surprise. This time it was shrimp Po-Boy sandwiches, homemade coleslaw, kettle chips and cut melon. With the regular salad bar stocked, we could add a little green to the plates as well. Rick’s homemade meals make it so easy to eat well at camp.

Over in the ceramics studios, we’re starting to see lots of colorful creations coming out of the kilns. This is exciting for the girls because there are so many steps leading up to their projects being completed… building the piece (hand or wheel-thrown), drying, bisque firing, glazing and then the high-temperature final kiln firing. Plus, it’s only at this last step that the glaze colors shine through. As you can see from this photo, the girls have been working on sculpting things— flowers, trees, bugs and so forth. I’ve also seen plenty of soap dishes, vases and bowls coming out of the kiln. Really cool stuff, for sure.