We are thrilled to introduce our newest year round staff member, Anna Terry as our office administrator. Anna is a Furman University graduate with a Masters degree from Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts. After seventeen years as a community development practitioner internationally and in the Southeast, Anna is excited to bring her administrative skills to Camp Pinnacle.  

Most importantly, Anna is a Mom to two boys: Kayden (6) and J. (1.5). They keep her busy with snuggles, outdoor adventures, and epic hunts for the best snacks. Anna grew up in a small East Texas town and is excited to raise her boys in Western North Carolina. Growing up, camp was her favorite part of the year and she is thrilled to share that with her boys. Anna has a deep love of spreadsheets and organization that allow for good, safe fun and we know she is going to be a valuable member of our team for that reason.

Anna is extremely excited to get to know Camp Pinnacle families and their campers. She is proud to be a part of the Camp Pinnacle family and raise her boys with opportunities to grow into compassionate and resilient people. When not at Pinnacle, Anna and her boys can be found dancing in their kitchen, hosting parties, and dreaming of places to travel next. 

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This year has been another big year for capital improvements. Tom and his team of Patrick, Brandon, Cagney and Casey have built a new bathhouse by the Shadium that will serve all genders.  It will also have a boys’ shower room in the back.  

The expanded Sky Park is sure to be a hit as it now has a lower level with new elements! We have changed out some of the aerial events on the upper level to keep it fresh for returning campers. Another recent addition to our climbing program is a tree climb next to the Sky Park. The climbing tower now has a roof so we can still climb and climb dry on drizzly days! We have expanded the climbing building and added covered porches so we can teach knots, anchor building, and other climbing lessons if we get rained off the wall.

Ed is the happiest man around camp because he has a brand-new rifle range! There is a lot more room in the new range and the new design will help Ed take riflery to a new level!

We have also been updating our hand sanitizer stations, cabin fans and the other ways we keep campers healthy during another COVID summer. Look around camp, you will see new decks, new porches, new walkways, new picnic tables, and a new volleyball net. Activity wise, there are new tennis nets, a new fidget spinner, new boats, new tents, new backpacks, and brand-new vans as we work to keep our programs and activities state of the art! We are always upgrading and improving your second home.

Staff have been arriving for the past week. Support Team and Trip Leader Orientation began Tuesday, May 25th. By June 1st, our two-week orientation and quarantine  (“quarientation” , if you will) is going to be in full swing. We feel fortunate our staff taking precautions to ensure we can run safely this summer, including getting vaccinated.

We cannot wait to see you on Opening Day. Enjoy the video!

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While our goal is for campers to spend as little time indoors during the summer as possible, the dining room is the one indoor space where we consistently gather. Though we will miss the history and tradition of the old dining room, we all know how crowded and hot it had become. We also know that sometimes, meal time is interrupted by “spontaneous” song and dance. From a safety perspective, rather than limit our fun, we wanted to make sure the floors could safely support 200+ folks jumping up and down with raucous enthusiasm.

We have been planning the new dining room for two years as camp continues to grow.  And we have definitely outgrown the dining room! We promise to keep the flags that celebrate the states and countries we come from along with the plaques that celebrate our storied history. The new dining room will still maintain a rustic, campy feel and we know our students will enjoy more elbow room at the table, a spacious feel with better air circulation, better views of the lake, and great design featuring more porch and outdoor dining space.

Our last school group, the Galloway School from Atlanta, GA, departed Pinnacle on October 28 and the construction project began on November 2. It was sad to see the historic dining room come down on Nov 7, but we are even more excited for what lies ahead. More important than a dining room, Chef Richard will still be serving the same great food next summer and has ideas to make our camp cuisine even better!

We will continue to post updates on dining hall construction so you can follow the project online. We expect the new dining room to be operational in mid-April. Of course Tom, George and the facilities team will be continuing to improve the rest of camp. Expect continued remodeling of girls cabins, new floors in boys cabins, renovation of our gaga ball pit, and several more upgrades and surprises as we prepare for summer 2017!

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Camp Pinnacle Enchanted Forest Mountain Biking from Camp Pinnacle on Vimeo.

Our newest addition is the Enchanted Forest. This once hidden area of camp is now full of trails and features that are designed to build independence, confidence and determination. Besides regularly scheduled activity periods, there will also be free biking times before meals where campers can continue to work on their biking. It’s great to have over 40 mountain bikes for 100 campers, a network of expertly designed trails, 2 teeter totters, a bike park, a pump track, a flow trail and now… The Enchanted Forest – all readily available for our campers’ enjoyment and skill development.

If biking is not your thing – No Worries – we will give you every opportunity to love it – but at Camp Pinnacle there are over 32 fantastic activities and everyone has a favorite! Enjoy the last few days of School – it’s time for Camp Pinnacle! Several counselors are already here getting ready for you!

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We are getting ready for you! We’ve already held our May Open House and hosted the “GNAR,” (an Adventure Race for over 200 kids.) Several Camp Pinnacle kids participated which made the race all the more fun! (11 of 36 medals went to Pinnacle or Adventure Treks kids)

Triangle Day School is currently at camp for an outdoor education program.  (Three year camper, Will  “HoJo” Norry is one of the students!) We will see the Galloway School soon. We have weddings scheduled for the next three weekends.

Our Counselor team has been hired and it’s an incredible bunch of people. More about these great folks coming next week! This fantastic counselor team will arrive at Camp on May 31 for Lifeguard Training which will be followed by two weeks of Counselor Orientation. Session 1 begins on June 15 when our first campers will finally arrive. To say we are excited would be an understatement!

We believe returning campers will be amazed at all that is new at Camp Pinnacle for summer 2014.  A new Camper will think all this great new stuff has been here forever and will simply be excited to try all that is fun and exciting at Camp Pinnacle!

First off – there is lots of new equipment: 16 new mountain bikes, 12 new SUPs , 12 new canoes, 2 new rowboats plus new backpacks, a new soccer goal and lots of great outdoor gear.

Mountain biking is probably the area where we have made the most improvements –  and we don’t think there is a summer camp in the country that has as cool a mountain biking facility as Pinnacle does. In the Bike Park, we have redesigned the pump track to make it ideal for smaller bikes and added a new feature named Copperhead Road.

We have added a new biking flow trail – And it’s fun! Real fun!

Then there is the unique biking area known as the Enchanted Forest – Get ready for exploration and adventure and then head to our Outback, where we have added three exciting new trails: Arachnophobia, Jabberwocky and Vertigo.

And if you aren’t a strong rider – we begin on the grassy field and we will teach you everything you need to know so you can have a blast improving your biking skills and gaining confidence at Pinnacle.

Remember how we used to do morning assembly to the clatter of dishes being washed outside the Dining Hall? We now have the Brand New wonderful Lakeside Amphitheater to get our days off to a strong start.

On the waterfront:

We have built a new SUP Shed for the new SUPs and we hope to have a new SUP Dock completed before Camp begins.  Next week we will be building a new canoeing dock to go with our new canoes and canoe racks.

We have made some small improvements to the Mountain Waterslide – but don’t worry – It’s still as fast and fun as ever!

We have added another new waterfront deck – a perfect place for a picnic when we have cookouts down by Wolfe Lake

When you get hit out at GAGA ball never fear – head over to the “ Lognasium” to test your balance and agility!

And over in Adventure Land we have a new cargo net to test your climbing and traversing skills.

There is also a new slide in Canteen Alley that transports you to Mini Golf!

There are four new cabin decks in Boys World and two new cabin decks in Lady Land!

And if you are an 8 or 9 year old boy – You will finally have a new home in The Zoo – home to cabins  Panthertown and Eagle Rock – Our youngest boys are going to have a lot of fun living here this Summer. Who wouldn’t want a cabin with a fireman’s pole, sliding board and rooftop deck! Note to Girls: – Good things come

to those who wait – Next year your brand new girl’s tree house complex is going to be incredible!

So we have been working hard.  A lot of people have done a lot of work (and still are) as we rush to get ready for you. Thanks first to our maintenance team – Nick, Tom, Alaska, Will, Joe, Bowen and Wyatt! We appreciate all of their hard work. Next up for thanks is Rodney Robinson who built our Flow Trail and Lakeside Amphitheater.  Both are incredible! We’d also like to thank Ed Sutton and his team at Trail Dynamics for building the Enchanted Forest and our exciting new trails.

But even though there is a lot of great new stuff at camp, the best thing about camp  is that it isn’t about stuff – Camp is about the friends, community,  your counselors and all the wonderful outdoor activities we are going to do together. Get excited to grow through challenge, fun and community.

We still have a few spaces left for this summer. Please tell your friends about Camp Pinnacle!

Session I starts in 30 days – we can’t wait to see you!

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Camp Pinnacle 2014 | Flow Trail from Camp Pinnacle

We have completely transformed our Boys ‘cabin area. We are excited to introduce two newly renovated cabins for our youngest boys. Knowing that 8 year old boys are the most nervous of any age group to come to camp, we created a cabin complex that will be even better than home!  We believe it’s the coolest summer camp cabin in the nation! With egress by slide or fireman’s pole as well as two new decks, the boys even have a special rooftop perch.

No fair, is what we hear from the girls! And next year the girl’s complex will get an incredible tree house – But for this year… we have built two new decks with lake views and completely renovated the lower girl’s bathhouse. This way there should never be a line for showers!

We all love gaga ball, but what do you do when you get out? Adjacent to the gaga pit, we are building a natural play area. Filled with logs and stumps, this is a great place for creative play. Campers can work on balance and agility and take small reasonable risks. More exciting than a swing set, we are excited to give campers opportunities to create their own outdoor games and challenge themselves.

You have already heard about the exciting new flow track! The biking at Camp Pinnacle is already awesome, but in a few weeks we will be adding a new kid’s biking area along with biking trails to our already cool trail network . We have completely redesigned the pump track and at the end of last summer we built “Copperhead Road” a new feature for our bike park! Whether you are new to biking or an expert, the riding at Camp Pinnacle will be unmatched! We are adding our third new fleet of Jamis mountain bikes to make sure every camper gets a quality new bike to ride!

We also have a new fleet of Old Town canoes coming and launching them will be easy from our new canoeing dock. (construction starting in April) We have a new stand up paddleboarding area – which will be the perfect place to try our new fleet of NRS paddleboards! Keeping our waterfront busy, there will be a new emphasis on rowing with new rowboats and a new rowing area!

And that’s not all – we have a couple more exciting surprises in store for our 2014 campers– but we don’t want to spoil the surprise just yet!

Huge thanks to Nick and Tom, Alaska, Will, Joe and Richard, our amazing maintenance team. They have been working in near zero degree temperatures and through snow, ice and rain to get ready for your amazing summer. Kudos also go out to Rodney and Mark for building the amphitheater and flow trail and to Trail Dynamics and Ed Sutton for our biking trails. By working together, we are accomplishing great things!

We think you will be amazed on Opening Day at all you will see. But don’t wait, come to our Open House on Saturday, May 3 or enter the GNAR (the coolest kids Adventure race ever) on Sunday, May 4. Better yet give us a ring at 855-378-1928 and schedule a time to stop by and say hello.

We are so excited to show you all that’s new at Camp Pinnacle! Only 95 days until our first campers arrive! We can’t wait to see you!

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After a national search with over 100 excellent applicants, we are excited to welcome our new Assistant Director, Fayssoux Evans.  Fayssoux is a third generation Camp Pinnacle camper and will help us keep great Pinnacle traditions alive.   After six summers as a Pinnacle camper and one as a counselor, Fayssoux broadened her camp experience by working at Camp Greystone in NC.  She then worked for 5 summers at Camp Laurel South in Maine, most recently as their Activities Director. Fayssoux is thrilled to finally be returning to the Camp she once enthusiastically called “home.”.

Fayssoux has a degree from Clemson University in Fine Arts and has lived in Madrid, Spain, the Virgin Islands and Santiago, Chile.  She speaks Spanish fluently and is an avid traveller.  We are excited for all that Fayssoux will bring to our Camp Pinnacle community and know we will all love her wonderful energy and enthusiasm.

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Thanks to the 20 campers and their families who showed up last weekend to help us with some last minute shots for our new 2014 Camp Pinnacle video.  Film maker Patrick Elmore came all the way from Utah for the weekend.  It was great to see so many of our campers again! We ran the mountain slide for what was probably the final time of the year.  The water wasn’t that cold! Many kids went over 10 times. Much fun was had by all. It was great to see lots of bikes in the bike park again!

There is a lot going on but we miss You!  Over 100 campers are already registered for summer 2014  and we are working hard to make next summer even better than last year.  We can’t wait to see you again!

Nick, Tom, Alaska and Will have been hard at work improving the facility this fall. Here are  just some of their many new accomplishments this month.   We have a lot of exciting new additions coming.  Ever heard of a Flow Track? Stay Tuned – there is much more coming before summer!

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We are hard at work getting ready for next summer and we wanted to update you with some of the many things we are doing to make the Camp facility even better for 2014! First we wanted to share some of Nick, Tom and Alaska’s  accomplishments from the summer that campers who were in Sessions I or II might have missed:

There is a new element in the Bike Park.

Tom, Nick and Alaska have built new canoe racks.

There is a new walkway beside the girl’s cabins.

We’ve built another new deck by the lake and added a new walkway from the upper deck to the beach volleyball court.

We are continuing to improve the Mountain Slide.

We are doing a complete remodel of the lower girl’s bathhouse. It will soon be even nicer than the upper girl’s bathhouse. Black Balsam and Bear Pen (boy’s cabins) will get new porches as will Tallulah and Watauga (girl’s cabins). The Zoo (featured in the movie, Heavyweights) will be converted to a new cabin for our youngest boys; it will have two new porches and a balcony with a fireman’s pole! This cabin will even have its own bathrooms.

Down by the lake we will be taking out the many small docks in the canoeing / rowing area and putting in two larger docks, one for rowing and one for canoeing.

Expect new bike trails and some new trail features. The Pump Track will be cooler than ever!

Outside of our traditional camp facilities we are upgrading the Oakmont and Fish Hawke camping areas to improve our on campus camping for short overnight trips.

Keep your eyes peeled, we have a couple more surprises in store for you but we aren’t ready to reveal them yet. In the meantime, check out our new Camp Pinnacle Program for middle school aged campers: Pinnacle Explorers.

Remember if you book by Oct 15, you can save $100 on 2014 tuition. It’s going to be a great summer, we are already excited to see everyone back at Camp Pinnacle!

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We just hosted a fabulous wedding.  Almost all of Camp has a fresh coat of paint.  (Thank You Tessa, Nicole and Mallory!) Camp looks the best it has looked in decades.  Staff orientation starts June 4.  There a huge new porch in Boy’s World And many more new things will be added before camp opens on June 20th!  The rifle range is getting the next face lift. Then its a new porch in Girl’s World! (Thanks, Tom, Nick and Alaska!)

There are still a few spaces left for summer 2013!  Tell your friends. We can’t wait for you to get here!

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