Hello from Camp Pinnacle!
We are so happy to have our campers here for session 2 of the summer! We kicked off the morning bright and early, with a 7:30am wakeup, where cabins made beds, swept the floors and emptied the trash. By waking up and tidying the cabins, campers learn to keep the space they live in clean, treating the people they share the cabin with respectfully. At 8:15am, it’s time for breakfast, which we eat family-style here at Pinnacle, with this morning’s selection being pancakes, syrup, bacon and eggs, with fruit, granola and yogurt for any particularly hungry campers! Before leaving the dining hall after breakfast, we announce any important details for the day, and then head down to Lakeside with our support staff.
At Lakeside, we have each of our cabins do a roll call, which they have planned the night before with their counsellors, and they each have the chance to impress everyone’s favourite judge ‘Rick the Stick’,and maybe even take him back to their cabin for the day! Our campers love winning roll calls, giving them a sense of pride to carry through the day, pushing them to be just as creative (if not, even more!) the next morning. But that isn’t all we do at Lakeside! Our support staff teach campers a variety of songs, hyping them up for the day, and run through the daily schedule with them, also celebrating any birthdays occurring on the day!
From Lakeside, it’s straight to first period, where campers travel with their cabins and with their general counselor to their first activity for the day. With the weather and the temperature picking up quickly today, all of our campers enjoyed having a splash around in the lake, cruising around the bike trails at mountain biking, and having a blast up in the sky park. The variety of activities at camp help push our campers out of their comfort zone, ensuring they are still surrounded by enough encouragement and support to keep them feeling safe and having as much fun as they can this summer! With it being the start of the session, we even had some of our cabins be lucky enough to be the first groups taken out on day hikes, setting out in the sun to see some of the beautiful backcountry North Carolina has to offer.
Period two let campers explore more new activities, our cabins heading out on hikes and backpacks tomorrow spent the hour preparing their bags and hearing from their Trip Leaders, finding out how their days out of camp would go. Others were bonding with their new cabin mates and learning new skills right before being called for lunch. Lunch today was chips and dip, with Mexican-style rice, pulled chicken and queso! Everyone had the chance to chill out and cool down with downtime after lunch, an hour for campers to head back to cabins, take naps, read or just continue bonding with their counselors and cabin-mates!
From downtime, campers headed to third, fourth and fifth periods, which were unfortunately interrupted by thunder. The weather didn’t dull our spirits, however, and we persevered, with cabins still enjoying each other’s company and playing games amongst themselves with their counselors. When the weather passed and we got the clearance to carry on with activities, it was straight back to swimming, back up the sky park, and everyone carried on having fun until it was time for dinner! Dinner tonight was Cookout! We have Cookout at the beginning and end of every session, with our kitchen staff preparing plenty of delicious food, such as burgers, hot dogs, coleslaw and beans, with watermelon to keep everyone feeling refreshed. For desserts we got ice cream, with a great variety of flavours to keep everyone satisfied before evening programme!
Our evening programme after the first day of camp is always Opening Campfire, however, due to the sudden rain, we had to relocate midway through our campfire in the Council Ring to the Shadium, where our Trip Leaders expertly and quickly prepared another fire for us to carry on the evening. Right before bed, our campers were treated with milk and cookies, the perfect snack to end an amazing first day at camp. From there it was showering for the day before tucking into bed, resting up to get ready for the rest of the session!
