By: Maya Smith (Winston Salem State University) and Josh Ivie (Tarleton State University)
Imagine being super excited about the next traverse to Camp 10. You have all of your bags packed and you’re ready to leave only to find out that the weather has decided that you need more time at Camp 17 before moving on to Camp 10. While we were all anxious to get to Camp 10 we never realized what Camp 17 had in store for us the next 5 days.
There were no more blue skies; it looked as if we were in a ping pong ball. It was a complete whiteout outside. The storm came like never before. We were all quite surprised; we had never seen a storm like that at Camp 17 before. Oh but the time that we would spend at Camp 17 was amazing.
For the first couple of days there were four trail parties left at camp so we made postcards for each other. We didn’t know what we were going to do. So we turned to BANANAGRAMS!! While this game was foreign to some, after a whole day of non-stop games we realized that Bananagrams would be a major part at our time at Camp 17.
After an entire day of fun the next day we were hoping to get the next two trail parties out (weather dependent of course). After a successful attempt we managed to get them out. This left the last two trail parties. Of course there was more Bananagrams played for hours, but after lunch our fearless leader Annie realized that our fresh oranges were beginning to go bad and that we would need to eat all four cases because they would not make it to Camp 10. So the challenge was accepted. Everyone had to eat four oranges and anyone who ate more than ten could get on the wall!! This is the most amazing experience to witness.
The Battle of Tang Mountain completed (Photo by Alex M. French).
There were only three people who were able to get on the wall Dougal “Bane of Citrus” Hansen, Melissa “Luna” Brett, and Stan “The Ant” Pinchek.
The Tarp Fort in the Library. Story telling time (Photo by Alex M. French
Also doing our time at Camp 17 one of our safety staff members had an idea to build a tarp fort around the fireplace and shared many different stories. It was a wonderful bonding time. Lastly, we took our trail apples and made delicious apple pies that we ate for the next couple of days. So, while we were anxious to get to Camp 10 we had a wonderful time at Camp 17.
It was Surprise Postcard night (Photo by Alex M. French)
Our Trail Apple Pie (Photo by Maya Smith)