Summer is officially here now that a portion of our summer counseling staff have arrived! Last week and this week has been dedicated to building our amazing new zip line canopy tour. Almost everyone in the office was on hand to clear away branches under the lines - and to sweet talk the wood chipper at times - while the installation team did their thing. We also put in a few new low-ropes elements, too. The giant's thumb was somewhat easy to test out for Amazon women like Jalisa and I, but it will be a real challenge for the campers. A big thank you goes out to the Summit team for their hard work.
The past two days have been spent training a selection of volunteers and staff on the low and high ropes courses (hence the nifty blog title we learned during knot tying). The rock wall was a little pollen-covered this morning, which caused some funny moments for the climbers as they clung to the hand-holds mid-sneeze. I, too, was a victim of allergies and actually came off the wall with the force of my "achoo" (it's an automatic belay system, don't worry). TrueNorth's camera man Chris brought out a Go-Pro camera to document the first ever Camp Newaygo employee to ride the zip line, Kori - it was awesome!
Unfortunately I was having so much fun on the course that I did not take any pictures of the zip, so instead here's a picture of a very tall, very fresh fern on the boardwalk on my way home last night. I also got a blurry picture of a Moccassin Flower Orchid, but I was almost eaten alive by mosquitoes to get the shot so I ran the rest of the way home. I have a feeling we'll be using up a lot of bug spray this month.
Cinnamon Ferns (disclaimer: not actual cinnamon)
Happy Camping!
