Welcome Junior Campers!
We’ve been waiting all summer for this whirlwind week of fun, and yesterday the Junior Camp Opening Day was finally here! When the wake-up bell rang yesterday morning, it was already shaping up to be a great day at Falling Creek. When the gates opened, there were eager boys waiting to drive up the mountain and start their week of adventures. After you all drove up the gravel road for the 2022 Junior Camp session, you waved your sons goodbye and they headed off on their weeklong adventure. But what happened after that morning drop-off?
From there, it was the exciting bustle of moving into cabins, greeting new friends, and plugging into the games around camp. Counselors were helping move trunks into bunks and directing enthusiastic campers towards their cabins. You can read more about our all-star counselor team here. The energy was contagious, and before lunch even started there were already games on the field, the tennis courts, and at the Dining Hall.
Even though we have a few boys returning, Junior Camp has a session length that is ideal for brand new campers to check out Falling Creek for the first time. Since boys move around as a cabin to try out all the activities in a different format than our other sessions, it is a great “sampler plate” of what camp has to offer. Boys will do 4 activities a day, together with their cabin. The activity periods are 70 minutes each instead of 50, allowing them more time to sample each activity on the rotation. We had plenty of boys who were wide eyed and excited after arriving on camp property yesterday, eager to try new things and meet new friends.
After you all started heading back home today, the activities began with no hesitation. Before our traditional Sunday lunch of ham, mashed potatoes, green beans, warm rolls, and apple turnovers, the boys had a quick cabin meeting to officially meet each other, and then gathered as a camp community at the Morning Watch area. We quickly described the week ahead, explained the FCC community resources available to the boys, and reviewed the emergency procedures.
After lunch, the boys followed a rotation of activities that included fun games, checked in with the medical team, smiled for a cabin photo, learned the process of getting a life jacket to enjoy free swim each day, and visited the Dining Hall to learn the various procedures and options. The boys then jumped right into enjoying the first period of the 17 activities they look forward to participating in over the session. These daily activity periods include all our camp classics, like horseback, climbing wall, paddling, blacksmithing, archery, riflery, woodshop, football, and more! This was followed by Free Choice time, and then dinner.
After dinner, the fun wasn’t over yet - We jumped into “Evening Program” to play a big camp-wide scavenger hunt. To top off the end of a crazy fun Opening Day, the boys ran to the Dining Hall to enjoy milk & cookies before bed. Afterwards, the boys headed back to their cabins for their bedtime routine and Evening Embers. This is a time to talk as a cabin and check in with each other about how the day went, stories they want to share, or what they are most excited for tomorrow. It was a great first day, and it will only get better from here!
Going forward, you can expect a blog from us every morning, telling a story about the previous day’s events. If you’ve been reading the previous blogs already this summer, you know that the daily blogs won’t necessarily be a recap of the full day, but will instead be a snapshot or brief story of camp life. They might be about an activity highlight, a story that relates to our FCC Code, or a special event at camp - no matter what the blog is about for the day, we hope the words and images give you a small window into what happens here at Falling Creek. We also encourage you to check out our daily posts on our Instagram site (@fallingcreek) and on Falling Creek Camp’s facebook page.
For more details about keeping up with what’s going on at camp, please stay tuned for an email that Paige, our Communications Director, sends out at the start of the session. It explains camper mail, the upcoming “parent notes,” and online photo details. We can’t wait to share all the excitement and fun that is to come during this week - thank you for sharing your sons with us for the 2022 Junior Camp session!
We hope that you all had safe travels today after we saw you at camp. We feel very fortunate that you chose to share your son with us for 6 exciting days at camp. Friday, August 12th will be here quicker than the boys want it to be and we are ready to make the most of their time with us! Let the fun begin!