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June 11, 2017June 10, 2020 • News • Jeff Carter

Symphony of Fun

Welcome new mini session campers! We’re very excited to have you join us at Rockbrook. For all of us on the staff and for the First Session campers already twirling through their session, this was a big day where new girls would be joining the camp community. More girls naturally means more fun, more voices singing in the dining hall, and lots more action throughout the camp. After a nice smooth arrival process— cars parking and unloading, luggage being carted to cabins, checking in with the office folks, nurses, and head screeners —cabin groups of new girls where exploring the cabin together. Serving as both a tour of camp and an introduction to the various activity offerings, these groups followed a scavenger hunt where they collected bracelets hidden at different areas of the camp: at the tennis courts, gym, health hut, and upper pottery studio, for example. It’s good to start with a little orientation, and this is a fun, active way to learn your way around camp.

We’ve been getting wonderful feedback about the new covered arena and stable we added to Rockbrook this past year. We wrote about the construction of the arena earlier, but today we had several parents take a tour of the facility and remark how much they were impressed. “It’s gorgeous!” was the most common comment. One mom said she thought this was the nicest covered horse arena in western North Carolina. I’m not sure about that, but its size and its quality footing (fiber additives blended with silica sand) do make it stand apart. Later we’ll post more information about this great addition to the horseback riding program at Rockbrook, but it was nice to hear a few “horse people” say they were impressed with our design and finished project.

We took some time after lunch for the newly arrived campers to demonstrate their swimming ability to our lifeguards, and when successful to earn a colored swim necklace. For some girls, the mountain stream water feeding our lake can be shockingly cold and thereby make it more difficult to swim and tread water as our “swim demos” require. So a girl who swims well in a warm pool may appear less confident in the Rockbrook lake, but we’ve found that with some practice and assistance from the waterfront staff, she can get used to the water and improve. On a warm summer day, the lake feels great, altogether refreshing. And when the water slide is open during free swim periods, and the lake is filled with girls diving, floating, playing games and swimming laps, the lake is absolutely delightful.

One of the best ways to kick off a new camp session is to launch right into an all-camp event, something that brings everyone together for music, dancing and costumes with surprising creative activities, challenges, and games with prizes. Just add a theme, and this combination becomes a carnival, a multi-station, free-flowing symphony of fun. That’s exactly what we did by throwing a Star Wars themed carnival or “Jedi Knight Training Academy.” The Senior campers and counselors built and operated 10 different stations like the “Matching on Mars” game, “Death Start Destruction” shooting game (using Nerf pistols), “Pin the Saber on Yoda” game, and “Shoot the Sith” game, for example. There were two huge inflatable games: something called “Leaps and Bounds” that seemed really difficult, and a bungee cord race. We had our snow cone machine grinding out pounds of ice for everyone, and a couple of sprinklers set up to keep things cooler in the bright sun. For costumes, the were many Jedi Knights, a team of Darth Vader characters, and probably a dozen girls dressed as Princess Leia. One counselor dressed as Yoda and another as Darth Maul, but my favorite was the baby Wookie being carried around. As the campers arrived at the landsports field, they could make their own lightsaber from a foam pool noodle and different types of tape. They could have their fortune told, their face painted (“The Face is with You”), or challenge a Jedi master to a lightsaber duel. There were plenty of things to do for everyone, easily filling two hours with activity. A perfect camp Sunday afternoon!

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June 10, 2017June 10, 2020 • News • Jeff Carter

Fantastic Success

First a Kayak Camp update. As you know, kayaking has really caught on here at Rockbrook, and in response to that growing interest, we’ve begun offering 2 special 1-week camp sessions devoted entirely to whitewater kayaking. We’ve called these sessions “Rockbrook Rapids.” Today, the first of those sessions ended and we began to hear some of the exciting stories of how their many river trips went during the last week. The girls ran a section of whitewater every day, building skills and confidence on the water as they progressed through class I, II, and some class III whitewater. On two occasions, the crew camped near their river. They ran the Lower Green, the Tuckaseegee, the Nantahala, the Chattooga (2 days), and the Upper Green rivers. This afternoon when the van pulled into camp after their last trip, the girls looked pretty tired and maybe a little grubby, but I’ve never seen a group more proud and satisfied. Unloading their gear, the girls happily handled the work, knew exactly what to do, and chatted effortlessly. It was neat to see that kind of camaraderie after just one week of shared outdoor adventure experience. The staff and the campers alike said the whole week was awesome. Check out the photos above (Click them to view a larger version) and you can see a little of the fun (Others are online in the photo gallery). One girl told me, “I’m definitely signing up for this again!” A fantastic success for the first kayak camp of the summer!

A great moment happened today when Sophia won a chance to spin the wheel in the dining hall. When it was clear she was the winner, Chase asked her where she hoped her spin would land. What prize was she hoping to win? Without hesitating, Sophia yelled “Pie Your Counselor” into the microphone. It’s always very exciting to spin the wheel, but when it lands on what the girl spinning hopes for, it’s so marvelous the whole dining hall erupts. And as you can see in the photo above, “Pie Your Counselor” is exactly what Sophia got! The kitchen helped out right away, whipping up two chocolate pudding pies for the occasion, so right after lunch a crowd gathered on the hill to watch the mess unfold. Everyone laughed and cheered as the counselors proved they could take a pie in the face. It’s not often you have two willing victims for this kind of pie massacre, so we all had a great time watching.

Tonight we also had our first dance of the summer with Camp Carolina. We again held two dances, one at each camp with the older girls traveling over to dance in the CCB dining hall, and their younger boys coming to Rockbrook to dance in our gym. You might think these dances with boys are awkward since they contrast so completely with the all-girl world of Rockbrook. In reality though, we do what we can to keep everything lighthearted and silly. The counselors dress up in crazy costumes, and are quick to encourage group dances rather than pairs. Sure, the older girls spend a good deal of time on shall we say “hair care,” but for them too, what’s fun is the loud music, wild lighting, bouncy dancing and overall exuberant tone. Of course, being their with so many friends is what really makes these dances great. But that true for everything at camp!

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June 9, 2017June 10, 2020 • News • rbc

Delightfully Busy

As we’ve clicked along this week, it’s been wonderfully busy, I’d say delightfully busy with adventure trips, activities here in camp, and a full dose of costume, song-fueled silliness. Take all the crafts for example. Camp is like a multimedia arts studio run by kids because at any minute of everyday you’re bound to see t-shirts being tied and dyed, sparkly beads strung on wire for jewelry, and soft yarns woven into mats on a floor loom or carefully knitted into a hat. In the two pottery studios today, the wheels were spinning and coils of cool, brown clay were being stacked neatly to make bowls. Watercolor paintings, hand-dipped candles, and highly decorated collage memory boxes are some of the other items being created.

There are four scheduled activity periods each day, allowing our girls to balance the creativity of arts and crafts with more physical pursuits too. Today both the Alpine climbing tower and the zip line course had groups of girls scrambling. As some climbed up 50 feet using ropes, logs and stone-like handholds, others zipped down about 1000 feet of steel cable and over 3 different suspension bridges in the woods. In the gym, there was a game of volleyball on one end, while on the other, the gymnastics girls worked on the balance beam. Just down the hill from the gym at the riflery range, other girls were firing away, and according to the instructors, shooting really well with several bullseyes announced at lunch. Likewise for archery— we heard that 3 girls this morning each shot a bullseye with their bow and arrows.

Several trips headed out of camp today as well. For hikes, Clyde led a group of Middlers on a high-altitude hike near the Shining Rock Wilderness area, topping out at over 6000 feet on Black Balsam and Tennent mountains. The weather was perfect making the views from that height absolutely gorgeous! Meanwhile, a small group of Junior campers traveled to the Dupont State Forest to visit Bridle Veil Falls, an amazing portion of the Little River that flows over 120′ or so of gently sloping rock. It has multiple pools and cascading falls, all brightly exposed to the sun. With the great weather we had today, it was magical. After lunch, the paddling staff and a group of Senior girls loaded up a trailer of canoes and floated a section of the French Broad River not far from camp. Again, the excellent, dry sunny weather made the trip both relaxing and fun as the group followed the meandering tree-lined banks of the river through the valley.

Our evening program tonight happened in the gym where we all dressed up for an all-camp game of “Family Feud,” or for us, “Cabin Feud.” First, to give the event a true Rockbrook feel, we added costumes inviting everyone to dress up with the theme “When I Grow Up” in mind. In costume, answer the question, “what do you want to be when you grow up?” Of course there were several doctors in the house, but also a few clowns, farmers, and hippies. Two campers dressed as their own counselors— the epitome of admiration! Like the famous TV game show, in our “Cabin Feud,” two groups squared off by providing answers to questions like: Name a fruit that you ordinarily can’t buy just one; Name something that makes you itch; Name a popular trip at Rockbrook; or Name places on your body that often get sunburned, for example. Each question has multiple answers, of course, so when teams answered correctly they were awarded points with the highest tally winning in the end. Part of the excitement came from the girls shouting their outrageous answers to the questions, and from the audience’s reactions, but with a giant cookie cake trophy at stake for the winning cabins (one for each age group), everyone was fired up! It was a night of good camp fun. Sure it was silly and loud, wacky and pretty outrageous, but that’s exactly how we like it.

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June 8, 2017March 17, 2023 • Videos • Jeff Carter

1st Session Highlights Video

We’re excited to welcome again Robbie Francis of Go Swan Filmworks throughout the summer to present a series of short highlights videos.

For two years now, Robbie has made these occasional videos by spending a day filming at Rockbrook and then presenting an edited couple of minutes. We’ve had great feedback from parents about how much they enjoy seeing all the action at camp, hearing what life here sounds like, and gaining a better sense of how happy the girls are.

Robbie filmed on Wednesday and now we have his first video of the summer. It’s great fun and I think you’ll really enjoy it.

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June 7, 2017June 10, 2020 • News • Jeff Carter

Easy Going Excitement

This first week of camp continues to settle into a comfortable pace just as it seems also to energize with enthusiasm. We could call the feeling “easy going excitement.” That may sound odd, but it’s one of the magical aspects of camp life. It starts with the people here at Rockbrook. There’s such a strong sense of community glued together by kindness, caring and cooperation, it’s typical for our daily encounters with everyone to be encouraging and positive. It’s part of the camp culture. We do what we can to help each other, with, for example, cabin chores or getting ready for an activity. We share— gosh almost everything! —costumes for skits, friendly greetings, songs, and virtually non-stop conversation, for example. There’s very little competition to distort this sense of bonding, no real ranking or struggle for power over someone else since noncompetitive, just-for-the-fun-of-it play rules the day.

With this kind of easy, pleasant personal interaction being the warp of your day, when you can count on this kind of true community encouragement, the weft of new and perhaps challenging experiences are perfectly supported. Instead of being scary or “too difficult to try,” new activities become intriguing opportunities. The comfort, care and support of the camp community makes new challenges exciting, even thrilling because any sort of “failure” that might follow is easily cast aside as a first attempt, as an opportunity to be silly or to laugh with friends. Knowing you’re accepted by those around you helps soften insecurity and defensiveness in the face of imperfection. In this way, the inevitable struggle, whether minor or major, we all encounter when grappling with some new activity, skill, or emotional situation becomes a concrete opportunity to learn and grow rather than something to duck. This fabric of support and challenge, woven from the newness of camp and a mindset engendered by a positive, relationship-focused culture, makes true what we’ve said for decades; “Rockbrook is a place for girls to grow.”

You might by familiar with the notion of a “Growth Mindset,” coined by Stanford professor Carol Dweck in her best-selling book Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. It has become a well-known concept championed by all sorts of educational institutions. Contrasting with a “Fixed Mindset,” which combines a relatively deterministic worldview with a belief that innate personal abilities like intelligence, creativity and talent are static, a “Growth Mindset” begins with the opposite core beliefs, that individuals can grow and learn, that obstacles, criticism and challenges are valuable opportunities to develop, change and grow. Dweck found that people with a strong growth mindset are more inclined to work hard, apply novel strategies, accept input from others to continually learn, and as a result tend to achieve more while enjoying a greater sense of free will. You can see why educators love this notion and are always advocating a growth mindset in their students.

Rockbrook too! Living here at camp, buoyed by the caring supportive community of friends, it’s much easier for our girls to adopt a growth mindset and to experience the feeling of success that often follows. We’re not worried about innate talents here. Instead, there is a real spirit of experimentation, of knowing that what’s new and challenging can also be surprising and fun. When we’re always ready to celebrate simply being together, no matter what the outcome, the process of stretching ourselves becomes a constant joy. Camp proves it everyday; a growth mindset is fun and rewarding. So cool!

Before I sign off, I wanted to mention the awesome trip the Senior girls took to Sliding Rock this evening. We first headed into the Pisgah Forest for a dinner picnic and a few group games. The girls loved playing “I’m a Rockbrook Girl” and dashing about in the grass. At Sliding Rock, the water seemed colder than usual, but that didn’t discourage most of the girls from zipping down the rock multiple times. We had the whole place to ourselves, so it was easy for everyone to slide as many times as they liked. And all that cold water didn’t cool the girls’ enthusiasm for a stop at Dolly’s and a cup or cone of their favorite ice cream. For everyone, it was a classic camp night out with good food, lots of shrill laughter, some challenging outdoor adventure, and time with our very best friends.

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June 6, 2017June 10, 2020 • News • Jeff Carter

Hilarious Delight

At Rockbrook, every girl who has completed the 5th grade or older (our “Middlers” and “Seniors”) can go whitewater rafting on the Nantahala River. For many years now, since the early 1980s, we simply ask the girls “Who wants to go rafting!?” There’s no extra charge, no pressure to go, and the girls decide for themselves if they are interested, but without a doubt, rafting has become the most popular outdoor adventure trip we offer. I’d say 95% of the girls old enough to go, do go, and go every year they come to camp. In this way, it’s become part of Rockbrook’s overall program. Rafting is popular, of course, because it’s really fun for the girls. They have an absolute blast rocking and bumping down the river, splashing and being splashed by the cold water, chatting a singing along the way, and laughing hysterically whenever someone falls out of the boat (which happens quite a bit… often intentionally, or at least partly so). Rockbrook is the only girls’ camp that has a US Forest service permit to raft the Nantahala, so we can use our own equipment and as guides, our own adventure staff as who are familiar to the girls. For us there’s no stranger in your boat, just someone you see around camp ordinarily, and that’s really nice for the girls. It was a beautiful, sunny, warm day on the river for all 57 people (plus our 6 guides) who took their trips today. The first rafting day of the summer was an excellent success.

If you don’t know about “Muffin Break,” let me describe it because it also has become an important feature of camp life at Rockbrook. It’s essentially a yummy surprise for the girls each morning provided by one of the bakers in the kitchen, a freshly-baked muffin served as a snack between the first and second activity periods (about 11am). The muffin flavors are different everyday, ranging from traditional varieties like chocolate chip and cinnamon crumble, but often have an added twist. For example, we’ve seen pumpkin chocolate chip, key lime pie, white chocolate strawberry, and even zucchini sprinkles. Today was another new flavor, maple pancake. The muffins were reminiscent of pancakes, and sure enough, included a drizzle of maple syrup on the top making them sweet and sticky, and fun to eat. The next time you send a letter or email to you daughter, you might ask her about the muffins and if she’s had a favorite flavor so far.

On the wall in the dining hall, right up front where everyone can see it, is something we call “The Wheel (of FUN!).” Somewhat like the game show “Wheel of Fortune,” our wheel spins and clicks around until stopping on a random section where we’ve indicated fun activities that the lucky spinner wins. You can see these prizes in the photo above, but they are designed for an entire cabin to enjoy and include things like “Rest Hour at the Lake,” “Polar Bear” (an early morning, before breakfast, jump in the lake), Dance Break (picking a song to blast during a meal where everyone stops to get up, sing and dance for a couple of minutes), and “Dress a Director,” for example. Though not every time, we often spin the wheel during the lunch announcements. Selecting which camper gets to spin the wheel is a big part of the fun. Chase hops on the mic and has everyone stand up, and then by announcing random qualities, narrows down the crowd. She might say, “Stay standing if you have your hair in a pony tail” and those without pony tails will sit down. Then, “Stay standing if you’ve made a friendship bracelet,” or “Stay standing if you have a brother.” As the excitement builds to almost explosive levels, this process continues until only one person remains standing, our wheel spinner. Today that person was Alden and her spin landed on “Pie a Counselor,” which to everyone’s hilarious delight (well, maybe not so much the counselor) happened after dinner.

Speaking of dinner, tonight’s had a theme: Nickelodeon. The counselors set up the dining hall to play several Nickelodeon-inspired games throughout the meal. First, they surprised the girls by revealing that every chair had a colored “splat” hidden underneath, and that each color indicated they won a small prize, like a jump rope, silly putty, or crazy fidget sticks. The main event though was a game of musical chairs where the counselors roamed about while music (a Nickelodeon theme song, of course!) played, and sat down at a different cabin’s table then the music stopped. It was a fun way for the campers to get to know other counselors. For dessert, the kitchen made green “slime” glaze for each table to “slime” it’s own chocolate cake. A little messy and a lot of yummy. After dinner the games continued out on the hill. Again inspired by Nickelodeon, the girls tried an egg toss where they had to catch the egg in a pail taped to a helmet. Like the Nickelodeon game show “Double Dare,” other groups had a challenge to use only their feet to remove a banana from a tub filled with different types of canned food like cherry pie filling, jello, and sliced beets. I think you can understand why we held these games outside! Sure they were a little gross, but the girls loved playing like this— small physical challenges, silly costumes, messy consequences, with cheering each other all the while. It was one of those wonderful camp moments of full exuberance and laughter that is very difficult to find anywhere else.

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June 5, 2017June 9, 2020 • News • Jeff Carter

Confident and Capable

Let’s start with an update from the kayakers, particularly the staff and campers who are enjoying a week-long specialty camp devoted to kayaking. Over the last few years, we’ve seen a growing interest in whitewater kayaking among the girls at Rockbrook, so to meet that interest, we now offer two specialty kayaking camp sessions called the “Rockbrook Rapids.” Led by Leland Davis, and our two head kayaking instructors Sarah Arvidson and Stephanie Whiting, these 1-week sessions are essentially small-group kayaking trip camps where the girls can improve their boating skills while enjoying some of the many whitewater rivers in the area. Everyday is a different river trip, with some including overnight camping. Today the girls ran the lower section of the Green River, which is a great place to start out because it provides a series of class II rapids, plenty of moving water to practice eddying and ferrying, and at one point a perfect surfing wave. Despite the light rain that fell most of the day, the girls had a great time on the river. Back at camp for a hot shower and a huge pasta meal, they seemed happy and proud of the day’s accomplishments on the river. If you are an Instagram user, Leland is posting now and then to a specialty account for the Rockbrook Rapids. Follow along! (By the way, here is our main Rockbrook Instagram account.)

Our 9th grade girls, who we call “CA campers” or “CAs,” accomplished an important goal today. They selected their banquet theme. Right after breakfast, we loaded up a couple of buses and drove to the Dupont State Forest for a hike, and more importantly, a private place to discuss what the secret surprise theme will be. The girls brainstormed more than 40 different ideas, and after hiking to a beautiful overlook, stopping along the way to narrow down their list, they settled on their theme. They cheered after the final decision, and immediately started offering new ideas about the special food, decorations, music and costumes they would organize for their big party of the session. The girls were so eager to take on the responsibility of planning and implementing this complex project for the whole camp, I can already tell that this is going to be an excellent banquet.

Our 10th grade girls, known at camp as “Hi-Up campers” or just “HUPS,” likewise had a special day— their first “Girls With Ideas” meeting. Getting together with their counselors, this was a discussion session focused on what it means to be a Rockbrook girl and how those character traits can help make our camp community stronger, contribute to the magic of camp for the other, younger campers’ experience, and potentially make the broader, outside-of-camp, world a better place. The Hi-Ups are the oldest true campers at Rockbrook, so we count on their leadership with several camp projects, special events, and important jobs, like clearing dishes from the dining hall, and setting all the tables before each meal. This particular group of HUPS is already showing amazing maturity and enthusiasm for their new roles at camp.

After tenth grade, we offer one last step in leadership training, and it’s for those girls interested in becoming a cabin counselor at Rockbrook: our “Counselors in Training” or “CITs.” These 11th grade girls (We only accept six per session) live in the cabins with the younger campers, and as their name suggests, take on the duties of a counselor managing cabin life. They teach a camp activity for part of the day, and also take on the task of running the kitchen dish washing machine after every meal. You can imagine, depending on the meal, this can be a monumental endeavor easily taking a couple of hours. So these girls are hard workers! It’s a paid position designed to be ideal training for returning as a full counselor.

For our 9th, 10th and 11th graders, this coaching and progression of camp responsibilities, adds up to concrete leadership training. Working together as a cooperative group, focusing on important tasks, accepting responsibilities with real consequences for the broader camp community, these teenage girls are growing more confident and capable while developing real-life leadership skills. …Another example of how “camp is a place for girls to grow.”

With good sunny weather most of the day, and only a slight late afternoon shower, this has been an excellent first day of activities. The girls have scattered across the camp excited to try everything— adventure, crafts, sports, and horseback riding. It’s been a great start to what already feels like a fantastic session!

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June 4, 2017May 5, 2020 • News • Jeff Carter

Open the Gate!

Open the gate! It’s time for camp to begin! Yes, as we welcomed our first session campers this morning, we officially launched Rockbrook’s 2017 summer season. The cabin counselors had just finished their week-long orientation and training, and were eager to finally meet their campers. The maintenance crew had just finished up a few improvement projects (more about that later), along with the regular grass cutting and sweeping (so many porches!). The kitchen staff had fired every oven, stocked the pantry and walk-in cooler, and was set to reveal its daily scrumptious surprises. The nurses had stocked the first aid kits (more than 30 of those!), prepped the infirmary ward, and reviewed the health histories of everyone attending this session. Keeping an eye on all of it, the directors checked off a few things on “their list” and answered questions as everyone made their last-minute preparations. We were ready.

With all this preparation, it’s easy to understand how we are all so excited for opening day. You probably got a good sense of that when you drove in this morning and saw the smiling faces, cheering counselors, and bubbling, buzzing activity on the hill. As campers arrived and raced from their cars, the atmosphere built all morning. Once again, about 80% of the campers this session are returning girls who attended Rockbrook in the past, so these families recognized the quick check-in procedure and happily spread throughout the camp helping get the cabins settled. By 10:30am we already had 100 campers in place, and already making a friendship bracelet, taking a hike to Rockbrook Falls, and pairing up with old and new friends to explore the camp a bit. The whole morning seemed relaxed and natural as the camp came alive with all these excited people.

Rick our long-time kitchen manager and head chef wowed us all with his homemade mac-n-cheese for lunch. A few girls chose the gluten-free, vegan version he also made, but everyone seemed more than pleased with their warm, heaping slices of this comfort food… even more so when the temperature dropped and it began to rain while we were eating. That was perfect timing for a little rain to arrived because we could finish our meal and the girls could return to their cabins for their first cabin-meeting while the rain passed. That’s the typical rain event around here; a storm moves through and fairly soon afterwards passes by and we’re back to brighter weather. By the way, if you are ever curious about the weather at camp, we have a fun new way for you to check it. We installed a weather station in the heart of camp that measures temperature, humidity, rain and wind and then reports that real-time data to several online weather sites, the most popular being Weather Underground. Go to this link for Rockbrook Camp Weather information and forecasts on the web. Along with current conditions, there are historical graphs and radar maps there too. If you have an iPad, there is an app that shows all of this data with a slick graphical interface (You’ll need our station ID: KNCBREVA27).

With the rain cleared, the rest of the afternoon and evening unfolded smoothly. Cabin groups toured the camp, enjoyed get-to-know-you games, and learned, or re-learned, several camp songs. An Austrian Went Yodeling! Meanwhile, whole age groups arrived at the lake for their aquatics orientation. There the lifeguards introduced our tag system and explained how our “swim demonstration” works. This year, all of the campers receive color-coded “swim necklaces” that correspond to one of three swimming abilities: Blue, which indicates a swimmer with no restrictions, Green, which requires a life jacket if swimming in the deeper section of the lake, and yellow for those girls uncomfortable in the water and who should stay in the shallow area of the lake with a life jacket on. Our swimming staff is quick to encourage girls to work on their swimming skills and perhaps advance levels, but for everyone the lake is a refreshing, fun experience.

The other important task for the day, again focused on orienting the campers to the camp, our activities, and to each other (!), was to learn about this summer’s activity offerings and instructors. The campers will be selecting their activities this evening, so they must first learn about the options. This brought us all to the gym where the activity instructors presented skits and songs describing the offerings. We all sat in our Crazy Creek chairs on the floor and laughed and clapped for the staff performances.

Camp is ready; the staff is excited and ready, and now the campers are more than ready for the action to begin. Let’s get to it!

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March 16, 2017May 6, 2020 • Horseback Riding • Jeff Carter

New Horseback Riding Arena!

Last summer we announced Rockbrook’s plan to improve its horseback riding facilities by building a covered riding arena and new modern barn. It was a quiet announcement really, but it included this architect’s rendering showing the open-air design we had in mind. Well, it’s time to announce it more publicly and officially! We’re thrilled to share the news that the construction is well underway and we’ll have the arena finished and ready for action this summer!

We began the construction in late August by using a bulldozer, a large excavator, and multiple dump trucks to prepare a large flat area of the upper pasture. This was a major job since we needed almost 42,000 square feet (almost an acre!) of flat land to fit the two new buildings, and redesigned outdoor ring. A civil engineering firm from Asheville helped us establish the correct grade, plan for storm water drainage, and survey a new road through the property. Since that time, Richie Case, Rockbrook’s full time Site Manager, has served as the project’s Contractor and led a team of workers through every step of the construction. We’ve received 90-foot steel roof trusses from Missouri, 30-foot long pressure treated timbers from Washington state, and bundle after bundle of lumber arriving on probably a dozen different trucks. More than 30 trucks have delivered concrete for the footers, post forms and sections of the barn floor. One highlight was the 100-foot tall crane that, over four days, lifted each steel roof truss into place on the riding arena.

The Rockbrook Camp Riding Arena

OK, so what’s it going to be!!?? The arena is huge! It’s 180 feet long and 90 feet wide, has a vaulted ceiling going up 26 feet, a 5-foot rail all the way around, a full lighting system, and a footing of sand, mixed with special additives ideal for the horses and hunter-jumper riding. On one end there’s an additional covered area for a mounting ramp, equipment storage, and observation. Certainly among horse camps, it’s the largest in western North Carolina, but more importantly, it will allow Rockbrook girls to ride all summer long no matter what the weather… rain or shine! In the shade and with fewer bugs to bother you while riding, it will be a wonderful place to ride.

The new adjoining 96×50 barn is wonderful too. It has 10 large 12×12-foot stalls, a heated feed room, separate tack room, a spacious 14-foot wide aisle, and a full 3,000 square-foot hay loft. Each stall has rubber mat floors, sliding stall doors, and rear dutch doors that open to the outside. Under a wrap-around shed porch, there are two wash stalls, equipment storage and more areas to observe what’s happening in the riding arena. It will be so nice to tack up, walk your horse down the barn’s aisle right into the arena, and ride— all under a roof.

Stay tuned for more updates. As you can see from this recent photo, we’re not quite finished, but we couldn’t keep it a secret any longer. If you ride at camp, you’re gonna love it!

Finally, here’s a fun little video shot from a drone. It shows both new buildings and gives you a sense of how they relate to the other riding areas at camp.

Have any questions about the new arena? Let us know in the comments or get in touch.

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The Rockbrook Camp Riding Arena

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