What wild adventures the last couple of days have been. We dove into orienting all the campers to how to live at Flying Cloud, not only as an individual, but also how we interact as a community. These sessions were often facilitated by our four camper leaders, who are really embracing what it means to be a camper at Flying Cloud this summer.
We also got acquainted with the expansive woods and mountain landscape surrounding Flying Cloud. We broke into five different groups and participated in some organized group wanders from our clearing all the way to Lake Ninevah. Groups started bow drill fires, tracked the local wildlife, and even identified and harvested some fresh wild edibles!
After a day in camp of incredible introductory activities we launched into our five different Day Trips.
SKiP Power Hike – A ~15 mile hike across three of the largest mountains in our area. A hike reserved for some of our older more ambitious campers, they busted out the whole hike no problem!
Adventure Course – A nine-mile hike from Flying Cloud to the Woodward camps where we made use of F&W’s new adventure course. An adventure course is a number of obstacles set-up to be tackled as a group. The campers had a real blast on this one!
Tracking – Exploring the areas right around Flying Cloud, the campers learned all the many ways to track animals other than by the hoof and paw prints. Some of the local creatures they found included White-Tail Deer, Moose, and Foxes!
Sacred Order – The Sacred Order of survival needs: Shelter, Water, Fire, and Food. This group covered all of the above. Building a debris shelter, learning how to carry water without a bottle, build fires and start them with bow drill, and even finding some wild edibles along the way too.
Self-Designed Trip – This our first try at a new Day Trip, and what a success. This choice was the most widely pursued day trip of all. The campers and staff got together and browsed over a Farm & Wilderness Trail Map to decide where they would hike and learned how to do some orienteering (finding your way with map & compass) along the way. They set out to locate a Flying Cloud legend, “Sliding Rocks” (a natural rock water-slide) but were surprised to find it gone, covered by all the debris from last falls flooding with Tropical Storm Irene. Even without “Sliding Rocks,” they still had a blast!
All in all, it was an excellent couple days of adventure. The group is a little tired from all that exploring, but next week we will all remain in camp. That doesn’t mean there won’t be anything exciting coming to the blog next week though. Something tells me we might be seeing a list of new Flying Cloud names gracing this very page.
Until next time, be well and make sure to get out and find something cool in the natural world soon! After all, that’s what we’re doing and we’re having a pretty grand time.
~FF~