Devil's Hole and Brother's Hole

The weekend weather was gorgeous - a perfect excuse for getting the hiking boots on and taking some classic Frost Valley hikes. First up was the easy walk along stately Biscuit Creek. We walk along Biscuit (full to the edges because of the recent rains) on the southeast side of the river, to Brother's Hole, then cross the cable bridge and finish the hike to Devil's Hole on the northwest side of the river. Brother's Hole (which used to be called "the Devil's Hole campsite") has an open area just above the lesser falls (lesser than Devil's Hole a little further upstream). In that open area, during my days as a camper and counselor, there was a lean-to and an elaborate firepit and sleeping area. The lean-to is gone and we hope to build a new one there soon.

When we arrived at Devil's Hole we were delighted to see that a group of Forest campers and counselors were there. Charlie the AiT Coordinator, who is a real avatar of hiking and camping here, had lured them out there with a promise that he would cook some griddle-cakes and add FV's maple syrup to each cake. We found part of the group surrounding Charlie as he cooked over a gas stove, not 8 feet from the beautiful flume. The other part of the group was wandering along the stream well above the falls, with their counselors. It was an ideal afternoon for them. The weather was perfect and the outing was relaxed. The water tumbling over the waterfall created a cold mist that happily covered us all. And the noise was constantly loud - that noisy rushing water!

A view of Sequoia (home of Adventure Village) from across the creek. Sequoia is located on a kind of peninsula formed by the convergence of Pigeon Brook and Biscuit Creek. You can see the communal yurt (also a staff lounge) and at least one of the platform tents, and to the left you can see the back of the cooking pavilion.

Another view of Sequoia from across the creek.

Brother's Hole.

The famous flume forming Devil's Hole. The hole itself is some 22 feet deep and COLD!

Devil's Hole flume. The water doesn't flow much faster than this (we've had a lot of rain).

 
Brother's Hole.

grandmother day

Villages often create lite "theme days." They do mostly regular activities but they stick with a theme all day and evening. In Lakota there is now a "tradition" of Grandma Day - and those who are heading toward this phase of life might see this satire as very broad and ridiculous, as the organizers freely admit. But however sensitive you are about age, you have to admit that it's very funny. These 11 year old girls walk around in the image of themselves they conjure up as elderly. They dance to old music. They walk around aided by canes. They tell young "whippersnappers" to get off their lawns. At the end of the day they happily escape:  "Free from the Home!" they chant as they walk across the field and startle everyone. Anyway, the staff turn their hair grey with powder and look remarkable. Here are a few photos and one video from Lakota's recent theme day.

now Hemlock

More mixing it up in Geronimo - this time with the VC of Hemlock, Alex Toy.

demonstrating what not to do

At the beginning of each Geronimo session, I demonstrate how to claim a seat, and sometimes, if I'm feeling my oats, I demonstrate what not to do. Here, in a game with Lakota, I asked the VC (my daughter Hannah) to demonstrate what not to do with me. And Libby Watt was there to capture the moment. Hilarious. Competitive Filreises, no doubt.

flyfishing cottage

My humble, cozy, not-connected abode for the summer: the old Flyfisherwomen's Club cottage. The Connell Family used to own this house, but Frost Valley acquired the land on the west side of High Falls Brook during Halbe Brown's time, and this cottage, along with the old schoolhouse (where Bud Cox lives currently), came with it.

is the sky here blue enough?

Is the lake inviting enough? Is the sky here blue enough for you? We have had two spectacular days and expect at least one more of these, if not two. This morning, at 7:45 AM, I checked the thermometer and it read 48 degrees! In the early afternoon it's not higher than 75. Perfect. Last night Bud Cox and I went to PAC's campfire and told a story. When it was done, it was already 11 PM and as Bud and I walked away we looked up at the sky - and saw the Milky Way very clearly.

when years later you run into a person you knew when she was 7

As I've mentioned, K.C. Carnegie has been here all week, volunteering (leading an animation specialty). Gail Morris is here for her usual several days each week and the two of them ended up sitting next to each other at the director's table. After a little bit of conversation, they realized that Gail had been a 7-year-old camper in K.C.'s cabin in Pokey back in 1994. Now that's amazing. It's 20 years later and here they are, each still intimately connected to FV.

banana sandwich, of course

I sat with Susky at lunch today. It was a little while before I noticed that one of the girls was carefully creating a banana sandwich. Her counselor - Elissa - described this daily process in detail and mentioned that I should watch carefully during the eating process, which inevitably entails lots of falling apart. I took this photo while the thing was still holding together.

two unrelated Schneiders are back

Kat Schneider and Becca Schneider - unrelated but then again totally family by Frost Valley standards - are visiting together now and through the weekend. Their "kids" (some campers but also staff) flock to them for hugs when they encounter them walking around camp. Here's Kat talking with Sandy Shapiro Bohn and Braxton Bohn (Lenape counselor).

Morris

Morris G. has long been our insurance guy - very responsive. He annually gives a talk to the staff during the staff training week. He's famous for his colorful polo shirts and sweaters, and the summer staff have made quite a game of guessing which color will be his choice for the day he visits. Well, I didn't get a photo of her annual training appearance, but he was back today just to say hello. We dined with him in the staff dining room, which is mostly out of sight, but the counselors got wind of Morris's presence and two of them came running back to have some selfies taken, and I got in this shot too. Hello, Morris! Nice shirt!

Pokey-Totem is back from their overnight

Last night it dropped to around 50 degrees, maybe a little into the upper 40s. Amazing for July. I used two blankets and was still a little chilly. The stars were all out and even after one of my longest days ever here - activities from first thing until well after 11 PM - I decided to drop by Outpost CQ where they were grilling chicken that had been marinated for a day, and some steaks. They were kind enough to offer me the first taste of the chicken, whereupon I'd had enough and walked home. But walking home in the chilly night with a dome of stars above: revivifying!

Pokey-Totem and Hemlock were both out on overnights last night, and what a night for sleeping out it was! This morning as I walked to breakfast I heard little kids calling my name, and turned to find the Pokey-Totemites sitting around on some benches behind Hayden Lodge having their bagel-and-cream cheese breakfast. I snapped these two photos. They were sleep but very happy and I hear all kinds of stories about skunks ("they came and looked through my backpack!") and stars ("How many were there?" I asked. "So many!" said one kid).

they will run the place in a few years

I had an intense, honest and emotional session with the AiTs yesterday (Adventure CITs). We talked about the history of inclusion programs at Frost Valley. To me there's nothing more crucial than that historical knowledge. Deciding that no child should be denied two weeks at summer camp by virtue of his or her family's poverty, or his or her chronic illness, or his or her disability, is indeed a decision - not a value that fell from the sky fully formed and unintended. People actually make progressive changes. I think the AiTs really got it. And I was moved by how powerfully they discussed their own responsibility in the chain of responsibility (stewardship is another word for it). So after this great session we walked outside and had a picture taken of us together. Nice.

* Alumni-focused footnote to the above: the guy standing at far right in the photo is Charlie, one of the AiT Coordinators. His mom is Lisa, who is a nurse here at camp and is herself a former camper.

pre-pre-Olympics hysteria

Yesterday was Wednesday of the first week of session 2. Our Olympics take place on Sunday and Monday, but the teams and coaches were announced at lunchtime yesterday. This photo, taken by Sandy Shapiro Bohn, tells you all you need to know about how a talented staffer feels upon hearing the news that he or she has been chosen to be Head Coach. Here we have Nora Harvey, moments after learning will be lead the team from France.

Clara wins a Bud Cox shirt

Clara from Tacoma has been obsessing about a black-and-orange (Wawayanda colors) shirt that reads: "Ask me about the Six Legends of Bud Cox." I've made it available for winners of certain challenges at Challenge Night, and last night Clara picked her moment, won the best-impersonation-of-a-Frost-Valley-person challenge, and walked away with the prized shirt. She's wearing it today. She wanted a photo with me after the event and here it is. Clara is clearly going places....

themed Challenge Night: 1980s workout look; 1960s counterculture; 1990s grunge

Last night's Challenge Night brought together Lakota, Sacky and Pokey-Totem, an unusual combo. It was a decades-themed event. Lakota dressed up in 1980s workout garb. Sacky dressed as '60s counterculture people. Pokey-Totem went '90s grunge. Here are two looks at Lakota's 80s style. Lily, a camper, poses and you can see she thought about this from head to toe. And the Lakota VC, Hannah (my very own daughter) entered the dance challenge and really did the 80s moves (to a song that was the 2013 hit of the summer).

late night at Sequoia

I had one of those inimitable Frost Valley late-night experiences last night. I was scheduled to tell a story to the Adventure Village staff at CQ at 11:15 PM. I'd hosted a Challenge Night earlier, then told a story to Hemlock ("Winky Tandler and the Maltese Bell" - they seemed to love it), then went to find Tacoma to see if their story was still on (but they were stuck in the dining hall because of nearby lightning storms, so we rescheduled that). So I got into my car and planned to go to the office for a few minutes before heading out to Sequoia in the pouring rain to see if the staff still really wanted a story so late on a rainy night. When I got to the office, Bud Cox was there. Normally Bud would have no problem walking home (the old schoolhouse across the road from the Neversink River by the Haunted House); he walks home late nights almost every evening, come rain or snow. But this night was different. It was really raining hard - a total downpour. When out in the rain one couldn't hear oneself think. A wet slam. And here was Bud, hoping I was going home (we are neighbors in the summer; I live in the Flyfishing Cottage) and would give him a ride. I said I would but that first I had to stop at Sequoia to (presumably) reschedule our staff CQ story. Marisa Shadburn, the Adventure Village VC, has been working hard to include me in AdVill activities, a gesture I have really appreciated. She wanted me to have a good long informal session with her staff, a get-to-know-ya time. Nice. But I doubted now that they would think this was a good time. I doubted indeed that anyone would be in the common yurt (serving, among other purposes, as a Sequoia staff lounge). That yurt is something special: decorated with old FV photos, including one I myself took of Bud in 1973, looking amazingly trim and strong, a long shock of brown hair over his eyes, and his Bob

Dylan sunglasses, and a ratty YMCA tshirt over his ripped torso. That photo has become something of an icon out at Sequoia. And there are dozens of other odds and ends decorating this otherwise pretty grungy space. (The smell of mildewed shoes is probably the main thing one remembers from any visit there.)

But when Bud and I walked from the car to the staff yurt in the pouring rain, we entered and found the entire staff there, waiting for me. They were delighted that I'd brought Bud, and we sat down an without preamble did a two-man performance piece, telling stories of the origins of Adventure Tripping and Sequoia, tales of wild hiking trips, describing the old Wawayanda, singing songs we used to sing, prompting each other to finish each other's sentences. We arrived at 11:15 and we left just before 1 AM. We had to force ourselves to stop, else we'd been there all night. It was one of those magic moment - not just two guys with (together) more than 100 years of Wawayanda and FV experience, but a group of grungy, wet, tired, "alternative" young people willing to listen and find out what we had to say. I'm grateful for it. And I could tell how much it bucked up Bud too.

K.C. is back, volunteering for a week!

The amazing K.C. Carnegie is here for a week as a volunteer. She came from California with her talented husband (both of them work in animation in L.A.) and their daughter (who is in day camp and has been listening to stories and watching Challenge Nights, and loving it all) and their young son - and also a friend and colleague (pictured here). K.C. ended her many years of FV as VC of Pokey in 1995 and then VC of Windsong in 1996. This week she and her husband and friend are offering very popular specialty activities, e.g. making a film, animation, etc.

she wins a Challenge Night t-shirt

Marissa Klein won the staff dance contest last night at the first-ever Sacky/Lakota/Pokey-Totem Challenge Night, and thus got to choose a new 2014 C.N. shirt. Here she is, sporting her new shirt the next morning, with Outpost camper Hudson. Sometimes I wonder why the staff who win the shirts always wear it the next day. Maybe they are truly honored. Or, well, maybe it's at that moment the only clean shirt they own!

MAC folk

Mac Boys VC Jacob Nathanson, Mini-MAC VC Nikki Goldschein, and YAI staff director (and long-time Frost Valley citizen) Gail Morris - in the dining hall at dinner last night.

CITs: away they go

I caught the CITs just as they were about to leave on their extended hike. They do seem ready to go, don't they?

two Toys

Alex Toy is the VC of Hemlock, and his sister Francesca is a camper in Windsong. Since they are both in the Hird, they see each other at every meal. Quite a pair!

photos from the last day of session 1

We're into session 2 now but I spent a few minutes just now looking back at some photographs that Sandy Shapiro Bohn took in the dining hall during the check-out process last Friday.

Jerry Huncosky and me

The Pokey-Totem, Susky and Lakota VCs (from left to the right)

I found a guitar and while we waited for the official start of check-out a few of us sang "Old Wawayanda."

A wonderful photo of the Hird VCs and directors. Back row from left: Hird Director, Mac Girls, Hemlock, Hird Assistant Director, Lenape, Tacoma, Mac Boys; front row from left: Pac, Sacky and Windsong.

Jon Cryer and his mom, Lalani

Years and years ago there was a camper here named Jon Cryer. Some years later I walked into my classroom at the University of Pennsylvania and there was this same fellow, Jon Cryer. Not unusual, I suppose, for a Frost Valley kid to end up attending Penn, but it's a big university and the chances that one of my campers would become one of my students were pretty slim. Jon was a terrific student. Later he went to medical school, and much later -- many years later -- I was in the hospital to accompany one of my own kids and there was Jon, now a Resident doctor! Somewhere along the line, earlier, Jon's mother, Lalani, spent three or four summers on the staff of our dialysis program at Frost Valley as an expert in the restricted diets of kidney patients. It must have been during those summers that Jon was a camper. All these connections came back to me recently when I saw Lalani Cryer Viney again here, on the day the Board of the Gottscho Foundation visited. Lalani is on the Gottscho Board. And here, at right, are the two of us.

Windsong

CITs prepare for their long hiking trip

first-day activity: untie the knot of the group

Here's Lakota and Outpost doing a get-to-know-ya/team-building exercise, a classic. Each camper takes a left hand and joins it with another's. Then all the right hands join but with different people. Then they attempt to untie the knot they've made and obviously they have to talk each other through it.

 

Outpost will make a CQ fire, no matter the weather

Biscuit Creek flowin' fast

We've had a ton of rain lately, and last night, the first night of session 2, we got four or five hours of major downpour. This morning, for now at least, the sky has cleared and the sun is shining, but at 7:30 AM I walked over to Biscuit Creek on my way into the office. The roar of the creek summoned me. Biscuit by this point in the summer typically is certainly flowing but in a central channel. Now it's really moving, and wonderfully loud.

Sacker back

David Sacker's daughter Catherine is back again, now in Susky. She's hilarious. I just now played a game of Geronimo with Susky and Forest (110 people! yikes!) and Catherine was super-adept as usual at this crazy game. Well, she should be. She's been playing it since she was able to walk. No kidding. David and his wife Darcy spent some time with us in the dining hall after Catherine was settled into her cabin. Their little guy is completely ready for camp, but he needs to gain a few years of age before his stint at 7 in Pokey-Totem.

trustworthy trustee help

It's now a tradition for members of Frost Valley's Board of Trustees to visit camp on check-in and check-out days. Here's the crew from yesterday.  From left: Bill Baker, Jerry Huncosky (CEO), me, and Bob Messick. Bob's daughter is in Windsong this session. She's so independent, and so unneedy of Bob's guidance at camp, that he drove up to join us while she took the bus!

Brock/Kelcourse - back again

Felicity Brock has been a Frost Valley neighbor all her life. Her family is related to the Connell family, who owned/owns thousands of acres of land just to our west. You drive through the collective lands of members of this family as you drive the seven miles from Claryville to camp. Mrs. Frank Connell was the matriarch in my own early years here. Almost every Connell descendent - in the Brock, Connell, and Mooney families - has been a camper and/or staff member here over the years. I myself came of age at camp with Ladd Connell, grandson of the grand dame "Frank." Anyway, Felicity Brock met Paul Kelcourse and they came together in 1977 to be on the staff here. I believe Felicity worked in Arts & Crafts and Paul was the VC of Outpost. Now, all these years later, their son John is a camper here this session. Here's a photo of Felicity (at left) along with Jess Dymond, our wonderful Director of Development.

Family Camp memories

For several years I was the Program Director for the legendary week-long family camp at the end of the summer. After four sessions of resident camp, this wasn't the easiest assignment, I have to say. I was tired and the Family Campers - families that came every year and really knew the place and loved it and anticipated a full fabulous week - were ready to push me hard. But I quickly fell in love with the regulars, including the Hildebrands, the Schnaufers, the Abrams and the Merinos.

We played an intensely competitive game in the lake called "Yak Ball." I'm sure I've described this somewhere in this blog. We took street hockey goals and put them inside rowboats, and anchored the rowboats at either end of a "court" area in the lake, in the area in front of the boathouse. We gave one team yellow helmets and the other team white. Each player got into a little red kayak (a playak), with those long plastic two-sided kayak paddles. And a volleyball was tossed. Abrams led one team and Hildebrand the other. I and several other staffers really got into it - no spectators we.

Paul Merino was one of the avid players. And for that matter, one of the avid fathers of a longtime FV family. Soon the Merino children, including Donny and Rachel, were campers and then staff. Well, yesterday: whom do I see in the dining hall but Paul Merino! And his daughter and his grandkids, who had just finished session 1 at camp. The Merino tradition continues.

Paul and I shared a few wild Yak Ball memories, you can be sure.

Simon Says

Occasionally at Challenge Night I will pull out Simon Says. I'm a rough master of the game, but at least I apologize in advance. Inviting the judges to be persnickity is one of the things that makes the whole thing so funny. Anyway, Sandy Shapiro Bohn took this shot a few nights ago - at the Farm. Simon says put your hands up over your head.

Geron is back

Geron Blackman was a camper of mine, when I was camp director, in the 1980s. Now son Cameron is coming to camp, all these decades later. Amazing. At check-out it was quite a reunion, as, at first, Geron knew who I was but I couldn't quite place him, and then the memories of this activity or that, this incident and that, this counselor or that one, flooded back. I don't have words for what it's like for me to see these "kids" as adults and indeed parents themselves. One thing doesn't seem to change: the memories of their FV summers are precise. Now Cameron has his own.

Zabriskie redux

Zach Zabriskie ("ZZ") had a few homesicky days at the very beginning of the session but then got really into it - and in the end announced to his parents that next summer he wants to come for two sessions. Dad John (now called "Lance") beamed with the pride of someone who himself was a counselor here (in the 80s). We'll see lots of ZZ here in the future.