Hilarious Fun

The Nolichucky is a gorgeous wilderness river that stretches for 9 miles through North Carolina and into eastern Tennessee. It drops down through a gorge of rocks between the Bald Mountains and the Unaka Mountains forming an excellent, scenic and technical, whitewater run for kayaking. Today, Leland, Andria, Jamie and Brett led seven campers on a trip down the Nolichucky, spending all day kayaking on the water. With class III and III+ rapids most of the way, this is an intermediate kayaking river, and these Rockbrook girls were ready! They tackled the “Railroad” rapid, “On the Rocks” rapid, the “Quarter Mile” rapid, and the “Rooster Tail” rapid. They took time to play too, for example surfing a wave on the “Jaws” rapid.

Nolichucky Kayak Kid
Nolichucky River Kayaking

A couple of girls had to swim after flipping their boats, but both Marli and Anna Grace were able to roll back up, hitting a true “combat roll” (rolling up, not while practicing, but “for real” in the more difficult setting of a whitewater rapid). The girls were very excited to be able to take this special trip and to paddle so well. Take a look at this excellent group.

Nolichucky Kayaking Group
Shaving Cream Fight Girls

Maybe it was the fantastic dinner of pasta, roast chicken and green beans we enjoyed, or the blueberry cobbler (made from scratch with fresh blueberries) that showed up for dessert, or maybe the girls have now grown especially comfortable here at camp, but whatever the reason, we were all surprised by the explosive response that erupted in the dining hall when we announced an optional shaving cream fight for tonight’s Twilight activity. It seemed like every age group was excited to put on their swimsuits and in about 15 minutes, we had more than 100 girls on the landsports field armed with a can of slippery white foam. There are very few rules to a shaving cream fight. Essentially, you squirt and spray shaving cream on everyone nearby, and run around trying the smear it into someone’s hair, or into funny patterns somewhere on their body. It didn’t take long either for everyone to be mostly covered with the stuff. The girls absolutely loved it, and really spent most of their time laughing after “smearing” someone, or being “smeared.” With everyone slippery, we also pulled out a slip-n-slide to enjoy. This is all good, albeit a little messy, hilarious fun, perfect for a bunch of friends at camp.

Camp Game Show Girls

Our evening program brought back Bill Grimsly and his “Game Show Mania.” A little prompting from Chase first sent the girls back to their cabins to invent wacky costumes… proving once again that everything is more fun in costume. Check out the photo gallery to see what they came up with. When they arrived at the gym, the girls found four game show podiums set up, complete with buzzers, lights, and scoreboards. After selecting random members of the audience, each round from a different age group, Bill presented a trivia question and answer game challenging the girls to name movie titles, musical artists, characters from books, and details from Rockbrook’s history (For example, What does the F.B.I. cabin’s name stand for?). Bill mixed things up occasionally by announcing hilarious “challenge rounds” where he would award extra points if a contestant could hula hoop the longest, or was willing to eat something “not so appealing” like canned sardines in mustard sauce. When a girl won a round of questions, her whole cabin received a giant cookie as a prize, which meant that the audience was always rooting for the contestants.

By the way, the answer is “Fanny Bell Inn.” 🙂

First Session Video Highlights

This summer we are lucky to have Robbie Francis of Go Swan Filmworks working with us to produce several short videos about Rockbrook. While scrolling through the online photo gallery is a nice (and addictive!) way to stay in touch with what’s happening at camp, some things are so much better if recorded on video.  Robbie filmed at Rockbrook last Saturday, and now we’re excited to show you the results.

Take a look! We think you’ll love it.

Rockbrook Shake Revisted

If you spent any time watching YouTube in the early Spring of 2013, you probably saw several examples of groups doing the “Harlem Shake.” But, you may not know that the second session girls at Rockbrook made their own version of the video.

You can see the video embedded in this blog post, but here is a photo of the event that is great fun.

Click the photo to expand it, and check out all those amazing costumes! These camp girls know how to have a blast.

See anyone you recognize?

Rockbrook Camp Shake Dance Photo
Rockbrook Harlem Shake

The First Rockbrook Application

Continuing our series of archival photos and history documents, today we have this; it’s an original application to attend Rockbrook from 1921, its very first year. That summer, girls attended for one long session that lasted 8 weeks between July 6th and August 31st. This application shows that Elizabeth Fisher from Hackensack, NJ was one of 35 girls who traveled to Brevard to be the very first Rockbrook campers. So neat!

Completed application form to attend Rockbrook Camp

A Magic in the Distance

One of our most prized artifacts from the Rockbrook Camp archives is a copy of the camp catalog produced in 1938. Described as “A Book of Announcements” for Rockbrook Camp “Mr. And Mrs. Henry N. Carrier, Directors,” the catalog is 32 pages of photos and written descriptions of Rockbrook’s history, philosophy, activities, staff and facilities. For example, the “Statement Concerning Rockbrook” includes:

The camp’s program possesses true educational value, enlivening health and happiness. Everything is conducive to the growth and enriched conceptions of sportsmanship, camaraderie and friendship. Of these things it is impossible to write; they must be experienced. Inspired by Rockbrook’s standards, girls develop those inner resources upon which character is built.

This wonderful photo of the mountain view seen from the Hillside Lodge Porch comes from the catalog. Even though the trees have grown higher today, there is still “a magic in the distance where the sky line meets the sky.”

The mountain view from the hillside lodge porch

Early Weavings at Rockbrook

Continuing our series of photos pulled from our camp history and archives, here is another from the 1930s showing the inside of the Curosty activity cabin. This cabin briefly served as Rockbrook’s office, but soon became, as you can see, where the girls at camp learned to weave. Working with wide floor looms and smaller tabletop looms, campers made —as they continue to make today— wonderful, colorful fabrics. The photo shows many great examples of these early weavings. Take a look at this post to see a few modern photos as well.

1930s image inside of crafts camp log cabin

On the Porch at Camp

Here we have another great find, on this Thursday, from our archives of early camp scenes. Again we think this photo dates from the 1930s. It shows several girls enjoying their free time on the porch of the Lakeview Lodge, one of the three stone meeting lodges dating from the earliest days of Rockbrook Camp. This lodge, like the others at camp, was built in the early 1920s using rock quarried from the mountain just above Rockbrook. It’s extraordinarily well preserved today and is still a hub of activity throughout every camp day. It would be so easy to find this exact scene any summer at camp!

1930s Camp Stone Lodge overlooking Rockbrook Lake

Rockbrook in New Orleans

Inside New Orleans Camps Magazine


Have you seen the latest issue of Inside New Orleans? It’s a bi-monthly magazine published about the arts, events, interests, and people of New Orleans and its surrounding areas. Each issue is full of regular columns about fashion, music, exhibitions, and food, as well as featured articles on unique aspects of the city and culture of New Orleans, LA.

The current issue (February-March 2015), for example, has a painting by Gretchen Armbruster on its cover— a fantastic New Orleans Artist — articles about the Metairie Cemetery and the costumes of the Louisiana State Museum, but also a piece about summer camps for kids. Overall the article describes the difference between day camps, specialty camps, and sleepaway camps, mentioning several examples and promoting many of the benefits kids gain from camp.

It was fantastic to see that the author highlights Rockbrook as an example of an overnight camp, describing it as the “ideal place to explore what it means to live a ‘wholehearted’ life rich with true connections.” Wow! That’s such a nice complement! It’s something that sounds very familiar, and right in line with the philosophy and feel of Rockbrook. Thanks Inside New Orleans!

Camp Cabin View

Since it’s Thursday, here’s a photo to throw us back to an earlier time at camp. We think the photo was taken in the 1930s. It shows an authentic North Carolina log cabin, but from a viewpoint impossible to reproduce today given how much the surrounding trees have grown.  And we’re sure the sunset view from that porch was fantastic. Take a look and see if you can tell which Rockbrook building this shows. Do you know?

An authentic log cabin at summer camp for girls