HI Parents and Friends of Durango Mountain Camp,
It's Sunday afternoon and a series of fierce thundershowers is fading.We've had a typical moist airflow coming into the mountains this past few days causing the clouds to build, then rain to fall amidst thunder and lighting the past few days. Nice, but this does create challenges for our outdoor pursuits. Yesterday, a group of campers and staff travelled to Mountain Sneffels near Ouray to set up camp - today they climbed to within a mile of the 14,000 ft.summit before being chased back down the mountain by lighting and storms. Yesterday, we also had a great mountain bike ride from the top of Purgatory to Hermosa Creek, with an elevation loss of @ 3,000 feet. Almost the entire time, the dark clouds were grumbling making the ride that much more dramatic. A third group yesterday hiked from Haviland Lake down a steep little used trail to the Animas River for some cold water swimming and cliff jumping. All in all a very active and successful day had by all. Today is more relaxed, our planned boating day at Electra Lake was cancelled due to the weather so the campers here elected to enjoy the Rec. Center and see a movie out.
This is our last week at DMC and the staff is running flat out to continue the full normal pace and craft the reports that you'll receive soon after camp ends. After Wednesday, we shift our emphasis to end of camp activities including academic testing of each camper, a Luau on Thursday, the annual Talent Show on Friday, and Closing Ceremonies on Saturday. Campus will open on Saturday at 9 AM for you to collect your camper and belongings. Brunch at 10 will be followed by Closing Ceremonies at 11.These ceremonies usually last @ 2 hours. Please come and join us if you can. If you camper needs to be taken to the airport, email me the flight information and we'll provide that service. Also, if your camper needs to have a bike or belongings boxed up and shipped home - let me know and we'll take care of it. The last week of camp is always filled with an extra excitement as campers look forward to going home to see family and friends, but also realize the depth of friendships and significance of achievements they have made at DMC. Even with so few days left we expect to see even more breakthroughs both psychologically and academically. There have been quite a few blogs and photos posted this week to our blogsite - so check it out.
Zane