Outdoors

These posts reflect the outdoor spirit of Rockbrook, where much of camp life unfolds in the forests and mountains of western North Carolina. Through hiking, climbing, exploration, and simple time outside, girls develop confidence and a deeper appreciation for the natural world. Learn more about the outdoor activities available to girls at Rockbrook.

Junior girls camping
• Outdoors • Chelsea Carrier

Getting Back to Basics

Tonight two junior cabins embarked on their very own Junior Overnight. This special trip is reserved just for our youngest campers, and the girls get to venture a short distance into the woods with their counselors, make s’mores, sing campfire songs, and hear stories. For some of our youngest girls, the Junior Overnight is their only opportunity to leave camp and sleep outside, and it’s a major highlight of the session for them.

The announcement was made during dinner: “Junior One and Five cabins, what’re your plans for tonight?!” The two groups looked puzzled being asked this question in front of the entire camp, completely unprompted. “We don’t know… ,” said one girl in the back. “YOU’RE GOING ON YOUR JUNIOR OVERNIGHT TONIGHT!!!” As soon as I declared the news, the girls squealed with excitement. Their time had finally come!

Junior girls camping

The girls wiggled into their pajamas and packed after dinner, running up to their cabins as they remembered water bottles, bug spray, or a critical stuffed animal before we left. Once we made it out to the outpost, I immediately started making the fire. One curious camper asked me to explain each step, which I was thrilled to do. Afterwards, the campers inhaled some s’mores and learned some new songs, including my personal favorite, the Cider Song.

For bedtime, after some discussion of sleeping arrangements and keeping spiders away, I read the girls a story about a girl who snuck cookies to her pet cow and another about a girl who dreamt of going to the moon. Most of the campers fell asleep before I was asked to tell “a Chelsea original,” which featured a little redbird who traveled the world helping others. 

vintage camping ladies

Full disclosure, I love this trip. My most treasured camp memories involve sleeping outside, eating something by a fire, hearing a funny story from a Director or counselor, and overcoming a little nervousness about a bug potentially crawling on me during bedtime. It was those particular experiences that brought me back as a counselor years later.

The Junior Overnight entails what summer camp is meant to be in its simplest form—quality time with friends in nature, away from modern conveniences. In my opinion, for these reasons, the simple little trip also celebrates the very reasons Rockbrook was founded.

Leave a Comment
canoe camp girls
• Outdoors • Jeff Carter

Campers Take Trips

Girl Kayaking down river
Girls hiking on John Rock

In addition to the regular daily activities at camp, the four in-camp activities each camper has as part of their day, the outdoor adventure staff announces special trips everyday. During breakfast and lunch, everyone finds out about these optional out-of-camp trips where small groups of girls get to go rock climbing, whitewater kayaking, overnight backpacking, day hiking, whitewater rafting, overnight canoeing, or ziplining. A trip might be a short hike that takes half a day, or a full-day of kayaking or climbing. It could be a night hike, a creek crawl, a visit to a nearby swimming hole, or to the cave under Dunns Rock.  You just never know what trip will be a surprise announcement. Since these trips are extra and optional, and since they require the girls to miss their regular activities, it presents them with a choice. Are they willing to skip, for example, riflery and tennis in the morning to go rock climbing instead? There seem to always be girls willing to say yes, and take advantage of these special trips.

Recently the kayaking instructors took girls to the French Broad River and the Green River. These were all-day trips that departed after breakfast, included eating a picnic lunch, paddling for several hours and returning to camp just in time for dinner. Another special trip brought a small group of seniors backpacking and pitching their tents near John Rock in the Pisgah National Forest. It allowed the girls to watch the sunset from up on the rock and be back to their campsite for an evening of roasting marshmallows around the campfire before heading to their tents.

Learning Rhythm with a Master Drummer

Girls Drumming Lesson

Another special trip-like offering today was the two drumming workshops taught by our friend Billy Zanski. Billy owns a drum shop in Asheville and has been teaching drumming lessons for more than 10 years (He’s been coming to Rockbrook for 3 or so). He studied under master drummer Bolokada Conde from Guinea, and no is well known in this area to be a great teacher and performer. Today the workshops included working on the Doundoun bass drums, which are double membrane, cow-skin drums played with sticks… three at a time, each tuned to a different tone. Billy also brought with him about eight Djembe drums, which are single-membrane, goat-skin drums played directly with your hands. After learning the three basic notes to make on the Djembe (called a bass, tone and slap), the girls followed Billy’s lead imitating different rhythms. Pretty soon they were playing very cool beats, and sounding great.

Dancing the Night Away

The biggest event of the day, a dance with the boys of Camp Carolina, in a way started long before the music. It began at lunch when the CITs announced that we would be dancing tonight, and for most of the afternoon as the preparations unfolded… non-stop showers, more hair brushes than you can count, and some of the cleaner clothes we’ve seen lately… the dance was on our minds. We learned long ago that splitting the boys and girls into two dances, one for the young and another for the older children, makes it more fun for everyone. The music at both tends to be similar (pretty much exclusively Pop), but the style of dancing differs a bit, with perhaps more jumping for the older girls. The songs with well-known group choreographed dances (the “Cha Cha Slide,” or “Cotton-Eyed Joe,” for example) are the most popular, as they get everyone dancing. All the dancing— the jumping, shaking, and spinning —gets all of us heated up. Smiling, laughing and sweating: it’s a very fun combination.

Middle Girl Camp Dance
Senior Girl Camp Dance
Leave a Comment
healthy outdoor kids
• Outdoors • Jeff Carter

Healthy Kids Get Outdoors

Canoe kid in the water with canoe outdoors

There’s a new bill introduced in the US Senate that authorizes “the Secretary of the Interior to carry out [state and local] programs and activities that connect Americans, especially children, youth, and families, with the outdoors.” It’s called the Healthy Kids Outdoors Act of 2011 and was introduced by Senator Mark Udall of Colorado, and co-sponsored in the House of Representatives by Rep. Ron Kind of Wisconsin.

Prompting this legislation is a growing concern that American children are increasingly sedentary, spending most of their time indoors, and overweight. A wide range of studies show our kids are addicted to electronic media, watching on average 7.5 hours per day. Obesity and its related health problems are closely related to this. And now, seeing that kids are spending on average less than 10 minutes a day in unstructured outdoor play, an alarming trend is appearing. There’s even some worry that an unhealthy American population would be a national security threat given how many overweight people would be disqualified from military service.

The Healthy Kids Outdoors Act would combat these trends by funding state and local organizations in their efforts to get kids outdoors, to encourage active outdoor experiences. Here too, studies show outdoor activity yielding incredible public health, local economic and national conservation benefits. Seeking these benefits, this legislation would provide up to $15 million dollars of matching funds to sponsor programs and infrastructure that effectively connect Americans, especially kids, with outdoor experiences.

Of course, we are cheering this legislation! At an outdoor summer camp like Rockbrook, we know and celebrate the wonders of outdoor experience everyday. We spend most of our time (not just 10 minutes!) outside, actively engaged in dozens of activities.

At camp, we know all about the benefits to kids of outdoor activity. It’s nice to see those same benefits being championed nationally.

Leave a Comment
creative camp kids
• Outdoors • Jeff Carter

Summertime Sleeping Out

Girls going backpacking at summer camp

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 outdoor adventure opportunities to get to know each other.  Telling stories around the campfire and just sharing the experience overall, the whole group grows closer.

Making a tie dye t-shirt
Stop action photography activity at camp

Creative Time at Camp

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.

Scaling Looking Glass Rock

girls rock climbing at Looking Glass

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!

camp teatherball tournament at twilight

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.

Leave a Comment
camp tennis girl moving
• Outdoors • Jeff Carter

Camp Gets ’em Moving

Girls Move Outside at Camp

One of the top reasons camp is great for kids is that it’s full of action! With almost 30 different camp activities, sports and adventures each day, everybody is on the move. Girls are zipping around Rockbrook all day long, up and down the hills, in and out of the lake, and from here to there with their friends. Camp is moment after moment of “Hey, Let’s go… (fill in the blank)!”

Even better, most of this action happens outside.  So in addition to the simple physical benefits of being active, campers also find themselves being more relaxed, more perceptive, and even more caring.  The research supporting the positive effects of outdoor experience for children is strong and convincing.

Camp as a Model for Let's Move!

Now there is a national campaign that recognizes and supports most of this. Launched by First Lady Michelle Obama, this initiative, titled “Let’s Move!“, is dedicated to solving the problem of childhood obesity in America by encouraging common sense strategies and providing important information to improve child nutrition and physical activity. Our kids need to eat healthier food and to be more active if we are to address this growing problem.

Camp can easily be seen as a model for the Let’s Move! initiative. After all, outdoor activity is the name of the game around here at Rockbrook, but also, we proudly serve excellent, nutritious meals, using local produce when we can, avoiding trans-fats, and making most things from scratch. If you haven’t seen our Taste of Rockbrook video, check it out and see what I mean.

As we, and the Let’s Move! initiative, advocate for a more healthy, active, balanced life for children, let’s get our kids outside this summer, and let’s get them to camp!

Leave a Comment
girl having fun outdoors
• Outdoors • Jeff Carter

Kids Going Outside

Kids Going Outside at Summer Camp

There’s a fun article in the March 28th issue of the New Yorker Magazine that lists the “features” of “going outside.” It’s by Ellis Weiner and is entitled “Just in Time for Spring” (here’s a summary) In the tradition of a radio commercial for a new product, the article suggests that “going outside” is an “astounding multipurpose activity platform that will revolutionize the way you spend your time.” Of course the humor here is that going outside is not new at all; though, it has been too often forgotten as we spend more of our day interacting with electronic media and filtering our experience through technology.

So what does going outside promise? Here are a few highlights.

1. real-time experience through a seamless mind-body interface.
2. authentic 3-D, real-motion visuals.
3. true surround sound.
4. complete interactivity with inanimate objects, animals and Nature.
5. the opportunity to experience actual weather.

Rockbrook is the kind of outdoor camp where all of this is so easily true. Kids love being outside at camp. They love all the chances to actually do things, to use all their senses, and to experience the wonders of Nature. Of course, we’ve mentioned before just how good this is for kids as well.  If you think about it, it’s good for all of us!

Leave a Comment
camp kids outside
• Outdoors • Jeff Carter

Kids Grow Better Outside

Kids Grow Better Outside

Spotted this bumper sticker the other day in Asheville, NC. Isn’t it awesome!? It’s put out by the Buncombe county partnership of the Smart Start Program, an “early childhood initiative designed to ensure that young children enter school healthy and ready to succeed.” The sticker shows that, like we have claimed many times before, playing outside is really good for kids.  Here are some of the benefits Buncombe County recognizes.

  • Kids are better able to play with other kids and work problems out with them.
  • Kids benefit from physical activity by experiencing healthier weights.
  • Kids have fewer problems with hyperactivity and are better able to pay attention.
  • Kids experience less stress than other kids their age.
  • Kids score higher on standardized tests.

It’s not too hard to see how “children will be smarter, better able to get along with others, healthier and happier when they have regular opportunities for free and unstructured play in the out of doors?”  And it’s a simple step to realize how important summer vacation from school, and summer camps like Rockbrook, are for kids.  All children really benefit from time outside, away from school, and certainly at camp.

Are your kids getting outside?

Leave a Comment
camp river canoe trip
• Outdoors • rbc

All-Day Outdoor Canoe Trip

A girl who attended Rockbrook in the 1920s recalls the multi-day canoeing outdoor adventure on the French Broad River.

“When I had done nothing less than run up the hill twice and play off a tennis match, I suddenly remembered I was going on an all-day canoe trip. I dashed madly down the hill again to the landing and found I had not been left, after all. Mrs. Carrier was to go with us, which made the trip simply grand. Only three canoes went, and the trip was a roar of laughter from beginning to end. Mrs. Barron and Miss Neely had never been down, so there were many new things for them to see.

French Broad River Canoe Trip

We amused ourselves childishly all morning by jumping up and down in the bow and making waves. We had lunch at French Broad Landing, and my! how good everything was, from steak to caramel cake. That’s what comes of having Miss Neely along. Much to our sorrow, Mrs. Carrier had to leave us, but Doe came. We changed canoes after lunch, and Miss Neely was with Jane and me. We started the afternoon pleasantly by accidentally splashing some water on the next canoe, and then the fun began. Miss Neely tried vainly to shelter herself under a raincoat, but finally had to succumb to Jerky’s pleas to get in her canoe. Jo came in ours, and poor Doe had no-where to go. Jerky’s canoe, seeing themselves in danger, paddled ahead, and Miss Neely paddled for the first time in her life. A series of water fights ensued, and Jerky called back to us not to swallow any water, but I was beyond that stage. I talk so much that my mouth stayed open, and as I could not habitually think and splash at the same time, I consequently nearly choked.

We were paddling along with ease and agility, when we came together and turned each other over. Seeing our paddles floating away, Jane and I abandoned our canoe and went after them. From then on we stayed mostly in the river. We would hardly get settled when we would laugh so hard that we’d go in again. We were supposed to be at Penrose at four o’clock, and Late was there to meet us. Poor man, I know he wished he had lived up to his name, for we were an hour and a half late. Did we have a good time! Well, I should say! To say nothing of a hot late supper.”

—Mimi O’Beirne. July 30, 1927.

Leave a Comment
outdoor camp girl kayaking
• Outdoors • Jeff Carter

Summer’s for Getting Outdoors!

Kids Outdoor Activity

In the recent debate over how many days kids should stay in school, it’s often claimed that they could learn more by shortening the summer vacation. More days studying math, science, arts and reading would make our kids more educated, it’s claimed. Certainly this is true; the more you study something, the better your competency in that subject. However, what is lost by taking time from summer and devoting it to further study? If we choose more school time, what are we neglecting as a result?

The Cost of Nature Deficit Disorder

One thing that would clearly suffer, and something that summer camps are known to enhance, is time outside, sustained outdoor activity for kids. It’s during the summer that kids have the time and the permission to play outside. They can return to nature, explore all the amazing details of the environment, and really feel what so many of their ancestors felt outdoors. Being inside at school most of day, and for most of the days each year, there are very few opportunities for kids to enjoy outdoor activity. They suffer from what Richard Louv has now famously dubbed “Nature Deficit Disorder.” The psychological, personal and intellectual consequences of our kids losing touch of nature are now well understood, and are widely condemned. Extending our kid’s school year, and thereby further limiting their time outside in Nature deserves that same condemnation.

Why Outdoor Experience Shapes Environmental Stewardship

This is also an environmental protection issue. If we reduce the ability of our kids to experience and know the outdoors, we make it much less likely they will value and love it. If their Nature Deficit Disorder is made worse by reducing their time outside of school, they won’t feel strongly about the wonders Nature provides, and consequently they will feel less concern for protecting the environment. Not knowing and loving nature from their personal experience, they’ll be less apt to protect it. Here again, time outside (and away from school) makes kids more human. It provides another, equally important, form of education. Denying them opportunities to learn outside, even when in service of traditional academic learning, is a perilous position for us all.

Leave a Comment

Explore Topics