This morning, our campers returned from their first overnight trips of the session. Judging by the grins on campers’ faces and the stories we’ve heard, these group adventures were a great success!
One of the key tenets of the Nor’wester experience is our overnights program. Once a week, everyone packs up and heads out for a one- or two-night excursion with their unit. Some hike, some bike, some paddle, and some take camp boats or ferries to reach their destinations. But everyone trades their tipi for a night sleeping out under the stars with their fellow campers and unit staff.
Caught a crab! The Pioneers had a great time on their overnight trip to Reid Harbor.
For this outing, units fanned out across the San Juans and beyond. One group even returned to the mainland for some rock climbing adventures at Mt. Erie. Others traveled to Orcas, Stuart, Satellite, and Lopez Islands for biking, hiking, canoeing, kayaking, and service trips. Our youngest campers remained on camp property for their overnights, but they still got the opportunity to camp out at secluded spots separate from main camp for an intimate evening with their unit.
Don’t be a crab – overnights are a camper favorite!
During the overnights, campers learn vital camping and outdoor living skills that build on themselves as participants progress through their years at camp. From building a one-match campfire to constructing tarp shelters to cooking delicious meals over a camp stove (or just an open fire), the hands-on lessons to be learned and practiced during overnights are numerous. Additionally, the conceptual lessons of environmental stewardship, low-impact (Leave No Trace) use of land and resources, and efficient and prepared packing, planning, traveling, and navigation are presented and emphasized so that they will stick with campers long after they leave camp.
Relaxing with your unit around a campfire you built yourselves is a cornerstone of overnight experiences.
Just as the skills introduced and practiced during the trips build on themselves as campers progress through the program, so the overnight experiences themselves are intentionally graduated. The skills and confidence developed during overnights equip our oldest units to embark on four- and five-night trips. These Big Trips and Little Big Trips are often the highlight of campers’ careers at camp. And our oldest campers will be the first to point out that the skills they utilize during these trips are ones they learned and honed throughout the years as younger campers going on weekly overnights with their units!
We’ll have much more to report about our Big and Little Big Trips as the session continues. For now, we’re proud of our overnighters and happy to have all our campers back with us at camp again.