You may have seen some interesting photos of young men building, swimming, and floating in Long Lake. What were they doing? Just one of the many CIT challenges to help them learn to solve problems, work together, and come up with creative solutions. Yesterday's challenge was to make a raft and transport "valuables" from the Owatonna beach to Hairbrush Island. For those of you who know the geography of camp, that's a decent distance of water. To add to the challenge, the only materials that they had to work with were logs and twine. They rose to the challenge with enthusiasm and good humor. The ten Owatonna CITs lashed together a serviceable raft, came up with a source of locomotion, and kept their "valuables" dry. As evidenced by their smiles and cheers, they were having fun the whole time!
While the Owatonna CITs were in the water, the Newfound CITs were in the woods beginning their summer project. They will work on clearing a trail that hasn't been used in many years. They will clear from Hilltop Lodge to the Newfound soccer field. Once they are finished, they hope that this fun trail will encourage more girls to head to the soccer field to play!
Other Newfound campers also rose to the challenge yesterday on the Rivers hike of Mt. Chocorua. Most of division (5th and 6th graders) summited the 3,500 foot peak in the White Mountains. It was a picture-perfect day for hiking. While it was a challenge for some of the hikers, they all felt deep satisfaction with their great accomplishment as they looked out across the gorgeous view from the top. (They felt deep satisfaction when they were back in the camp vans at the bottom, also!!). Many of the Owatonna Braves (5th and 6th graders) also successfully hiked Chororua yesterday.
Back at camp, the Owatonna Warriors (7th and 8th graders) came together as a division and played dodge ball with a twist--half of each team was blindfolded, so they had to trust their teammates to tell them where to go to collect balls, throw balls, and avoid balls! Much laughter ensued! In the afternoon, these boys took to the high seas of Long Lake in war canoes (extra-large canoes) and enjoyed the sunny afternoon.
Down at the water, some Newfound girls used regular canoes to learn the classic "canoe-over-canoe" rescue--how to right two flipped canoes. As you can see by the photos, they were successful!
Today, Owatonna competed against Camp Wigwam in U13 ultimate frisbee...the boys pulled out a squeaker of a victory, 13-12, in overtime.
Camp continues to be full of fun, joy, and growth!
