Author Archives: Jeff Carter

If you spend a little time with the campers at Rockbrook, it doesn’t take long to realize they are abundantly happy. Even oddly so. You see girls doing things that seem pretty mundane. You even see girls enduring things that are ostensibly uncomfortable. And yet, at the same time they are truly happy, sometimes jittery with excitement and other times simply smiling with content, but clearly being especially joyful.

I saw it the other day when hiking with the Hi-Ups, the 16-year-old campers. We were strolling along enjoying all the diversity of plants in this part of North Carolina, and the girls were chatting and laughing about nothing in particular. Every so often, one would start singing a song, in this case a song from Moana the Disney movie, and soon most of girls were joining in to sing along. This inspired another Disney song, and then another, quickly becoming a medley. These teenage girls were gleefully hiking, sweating up the hills, ducking through briars, hopping over rocks to cross a stream, sliding down slippery slopes. They didn’t question or complain, but instead happily sang and talked about how much fun they were having. These were not surly teens glued to their phones; they were enthusiastic young people enjoying a unique experience with their good friends.

Maybe you got a sense of the wholesale happiness of camp life by watching yesterday’s video. You saw your camp girls happily working on craft projects, playing tetherball, zipping down the waterslide, climbing the alpine tower, shooting rifles and paddling canoes. At the same time, still happily (!), they were overcoming challenges, swishing away bugs, wiping away sweat, mustering their courage to take that first step down the waterslide and up the climbing tower. Sure, there have been disagreements and frustrations along the way, but at camp these speed bumps are easily overcome.

Camp girls don’t need the “comforts of home” or some other luxury to be happy. They don’t need a private room or a personalized menu for their meals. They don’t need electronic entertainment, or really good wi-fi. At camp, there are no flickering screens to pull their attention away from the real world and all that it offers. They don’t need everything to be “perfect” or to go exactly right. They don’t need to win some kind of competition proving their superior looks, smarts, wealth, or family pedigree. At camp, we’re all different and that’s a good thing, right from the start. Camp girls don’t even need specific activities to be happy while they’re here, either. We could drop almost anything we do (well, maybe not muffin break!), or change our activity offerings, and the girls here would still have what they need to be happy throughout their day.

So what do they need to be this happy at camp? They need a few essential things like food and shelter, and the occasional bit of health care, and I’d say they need to be active and outdoors, but most importantly, they need each other. They need kindness from the people around them. They need to know deep down that they are included, respected, and loved for who they really are, “safe in their own skin,” “quirks and all.” They need to feel genuine support from their peers. You see, camp relationships are special like this. They are not colored by social posturing, which is all too common in other contexts. Interpersonal tensions at camp are ordinarily quickly resolved with heartfelt communication and appeals to being a “Rockbrook girl.” In this kind of community, built of relationships supported by a positive camp culture, girls naturally feel good about themselves, really good about themselves. They become stronger and more confident. And yes, deeply happy.

All of us at Rockbrook are so fortunate to be a part of this community, to be connected to the people here, and to be surrounded by all this happiness. It’s truly wonderful.

Walking around camp today, here are a few things I noticed. Girls were giving friends piggyback rides. Two girls lay down at the top of the hill, and like a log, rolled down, hair flying and screaming the whole way. Three 2nd-graders were building a small dam in the creek “to catch fish,” they told me. 16-year old Hi-Ups were hauling a bag of trash so big it took two to carry it. I saw girls cheering others as they successfully climbed to the top of the Alpine Tower. There were girls wearing simple costumes, gleefully being silly. Funny faces on the tennis courts and wide-eyed grins zooming down the water slide. Girls lounging completely relaxed on yoga mats, and others intensely concentrating while pulling an arrow across a bow. Friends being completely at ease with each other while doing a goofy dance.

It might sound strange, but this is the good stuff of camp. These simple examples of camp life, and many others, show a deep truth about your girls. They prove that in reality, your girls are bold, strong, curious and joyful. Your camp girls easily connect with each other, and understand each other. They’re being so incredibly happy and grounded.

The simple stuff at camp reveals a special humanity of being a kid, something inherent and amazing, but also, I would bet, something that’s more muted in their ordinary non-camp lives. We hear it all the time: girls saying “at camp I can be my true self. I can be me.” Of course, this implies that when not at camp, they’re not their “true self.” Hmmm… Coming to summer camp somehow provides a certain relief for kids, and that relief helps them be amazing.

If I had to explain it, I’d say it’s the culture of Rockbrook that has this power to enliven the deep humanity of being a child. The positive camp environment, percolating with enthusiasm and support, is perfectly suited to coax out these “trampled instincts” of children, as Emerson might have put it. That’s really what’s going on at camp. Yes there are activities— we’re making pottery, paddling boats, shooting targets, and so forth —but we’re also creating an intentional community where girls can develop their better instincts, free from the pressures of home and school. We’re outside a lot. We’re not competing. We’re not filtering reality through what appears on the internet. We’re immersed in a community where we feel we belong, feel valued and loved. Camp has that unique combination of encouragement and opportunity, contagious kindness and freedom to explore.

We hope that these amazing instincts hold, and your girls can exercise their “authentic self” after they leave Rockbrook. It’s certainly more difficult without the community support and context camp provides, but camp girls know first hand that they have these amazing powers and that they can be confident of their deep truth. Everyday at camp, they experience that truth, even in the littlest things.

All the Middlers (5th and 6th graders) came to dinner dressed in their swimsuits and water shoes, and with their towels draped over their chair, ate faster than usual. This is because they knew that tonight they were heading to Sliding Rock. By 7pm, 6 buses of very excited girls were making their way along the curvy road through the Pisgah National Forest to that famous part of Looking Glass Creek where it flows over 60 feet of gently sloping rock into a pool at the bottom. Generations of Rockbrook girls have made this trip and had this experience.

It’s a scream-inducing thrill! Sitting down into the rushing 55-degree water, scooting to the edge of the slope, and suddenly accelerating toward the dunking splash at the end— it’s uniquely fun. Our evening trip adds to the excitement because it’s a little shady and dark when we slide. We love going “after hours” because we can bring our own lifeguards and usually we have the place to ourselves. We completed the outing by stopping at everyone’s favorite ice cream place— some say “favorite on earth!” — Dolly’s Dairy Bar. Each of the girls selected a cup or cone of their favorite flavor, and enjoyed the chilly treat, chatting (which turned into singing soon enough) outside under the glow of Dolly’s colorful neon lighting. Chilly and still a little damp when we arrived back at camp, the girls headed straight to their cabins to get ready for bed.

Only rarely does it rain in the morning at camp. It’s often wet feeling in the morning because the humidity combines with lower temperatures to cover things in dew and immerse us all in fog, and of course we often have thunderstorms roll through in the afternoon, but by mid-morning the sun ordinarily clears things out. Today though, we had light rain falling off and on throughout the morning until about 4pm. If you are ever curious about the weather at camp, you can check the Rockbrook Camp weather station. It’s mounted on our office, and it continuously monitors and reports current weather conditions to the Weather Underground network. Checking the stats, it looks like we received 1.13 inches of rain for the day.

Many of our activities carry on normally when it’s raining: all the crafts for example. Most of these happen outdoors on a covered porch, like painting and drawing, jewelry making, and needlecraft, while other have their own dedicated open-air spaces, like pottery and hodge podge tie-dyeing. There are more raincoats (sometimes called “dewcoats” at RBC… “my dewcoat is up in my cabin” as the song exclaims) cast about, and there’s a pleasant patter in the air, but all this craftiness hardly slows down when there’s a “heavy dew.”

The climbers headed to the gym to hop on the climbing wall. Gagaball became dodgeball in the gym, and the tennis players worked on their strokes in the dining hall playing pingpong. The horse girls could still ride thanks to the covered arena, but we will reschedule zipline rides for a few cabins, and those who couldn’t shoot archery today will get a chance another day in the session.

Six buses of campers (about 80 middlers and seniors) spent the day whitewater rafting today on the Nantahala river. We drove over to find similar weather— clouds and some drizzle, but also moments of sunshine. Rafting, as you can guess, is inherently a wet and splashy experience, so a little rain doesn’t change much. The girls had a complete blast bumping down the river, yes occasionally falling into the water (an “out of boat experience”), and exercising their talent for screaming through the rapids. Between rapids they sang, took turns “riding the bull” (sitting on the front of the boat like a hood ornament), and happily posed and waved for photos. So much fun!

We’re not sure what tipped them off, but Our State magazine, the monthly print magazine that celebrates the culture and history of North Carolina, just published a short article about Rockbrook. The article, entitled “Back in the Day: When the Circus Came to Camp,” talks about our founder Nancy Clarke Carrier, and her family relationship to P.T. Barnum, the well-known circus showman. Nancy’s mother was Barnum’s granddaughter. Being from a circus family, Nancy’s home was decorated with circus artifacts, including a famous small chair, one made especially for Charles Stratton, better known as Tom Thumb. Girls attending Rockbrook in those early years were excited to see “Tom Thumb’s chair,” and even more so to sit in it. As we celebrate Rockbrook’s 100-year birthday, it’s fun to recall this unique circus connection to the history of the camp, and throughout our sessions play with circus ideas during special events.

The community of camp is deepening with each passing day. We’re seeing the girls relax more and begin to feel more comfortable at camp, despite all the differences in their experience compared to home— no parents, no air-conditioning, and no electronic entertainment, for example. Rain or shine, we’re sharing so much, spending all of our time together, and strengthening our connections to each other and to Rockbrook along the way.

Today was one of those beautiful days at camp. I don’t mean just the weather, though it was nicely sunny and warm, a true dose of summer. The beauty came from the people here and all the diversity of their interests, activity, and conversations. There’s something inherently beautiful about a group of children being curious, soaking up new experiences, and finding regular flashes of joy from simply being together. As we all scattered ourselves around camp today, the feeling of camp was revived. It’s a relaxed, joyful busyness. It’s learning things, but for the fun of it. It’s sharing experience with friends, laughing together and growing closer bit by bit. It’s delightful surprises, natural wonders, and the authenticity of being silly. A quick look in any direction, at just about any time of the day, is to be struck by amazing points of this camp beauty. I wish you could see it firsthand!

Every activity was fully engaged today. The photo gallery again reflects that, all the adventure, creativity, sports, riding, and freedom to enjoy the lake. Together with their cabin groups, the girls rotated through 4 different activities, and three blocks of free time between our three meals and two snack breaks. By the way, I’d say our mid-morning “muffin break” is a highlight for many of us at camp. Today’s freshly baked surprise flavor was banana-coconut. Lunch brought us homemade tomato soup and “cheesy bread,” another camp favorite. Burgers and hand-cut fries, with lemon bars for dessert made our picnic on the hill extra delicious.

I should say a little something about mask wearing at camp this session because it might be confusing about our policy when you see photos with girls sometimes wearing masks and other times not. Whenever the girls are with just members of their own sleeping cabin (their “cohort”), they can remove their masks. They may choose to wear them, but whenever the cabins are not mixing— like during the scheduled activities, meals, and when inside their cabin —wearing a mask is not required. When within six feet of someone from another cabin, however, we are asking everyone to mask up. These encounters tend to be when larger groups are gathered for events like LIne evening programs, or during blocks of free time when the girls can visit friends from other cabins. Today I saw two girls chatting in the red rocking chairs on the dining hall porch, two girls from different cabins, and they were wearing their masks. This policy is fairly intuitive, and most of the campers seem to have no trouble remembering when to apply it.

Let’s also mention something about mail at camp. Send it! Lots of it! …though no packages please…The USMail can be a little slow around here, but nothing beats a real letter in your mailbox. I know it’s hard to find the time, and emails are a lot easier (you can send those too), but your girls will really appreciate something more meaningful from you. The girls check their mailboxes right before rest hour, so what you send can inspire a letter in return. Parents love mail from camp too!

The girls are starting to settle in at camp. As you can see we’re all staying happily busy, and well-fed. Already, we’re making the most out of each day, finding that life in this camp community feels really good. There will bound to be a few bumps along the way, challenges that we will work on together, but there’s good to be found there too. We’re all here to help each other, encourage each other, and appreciate each other as we dig into all the fun. Stay tuned!

It’s always exciting to start a new session of camp, exciting for the staff at Rockbrook and of course very exciting for the girls arriving. This summer, after skipping a year of camp and enduring the social restrictions caused by the coronavirus pandemic, you can imagine this would be even more so. In addition, today we opened our longest, 4-week session which is chock full of the most enthusiastic campers, many of whom have been coming to Rockbrook for years. It’s true; all morning as we checked girls into camp, we saw a blazing excitement to get started with camp, smiling faces of gratitude from parents, and scores of fidgety eager girls. After all, we’ve been waiting a long time for this day, for camp to bring us together, to get us outside and playing, to let us be real again. It’s just exciting!

Our check-in procedure went well overall, despite a bottleneck later in the morning when the seniors began arriving. Thank you for your patience if you had to wait in line longer than you expected. And thank you for following our pre-camp precautions— all the forms, quarantining, and testing —all important. Our nurses were impressed by how organized and prepared everyone was with their medications. Here too, everyone seemed ready for camp.

Settling into the cabins turned into a fun group project. Along with the counselors, the girls helped each other make their beds, arrange their trunks in the cabin and add extra touches like “fairy lights,” pillows and stuffed animals to make their new home a little more cozy. The girls start to get to know each other through this simple activity, and as they sit down for their “cabin meeting,” they already have ideas about how they will work together throughout the session. These cabin groups will be eating their meals together and taking their scheduled activities together, so the feel of the group is important to establish well. The counselors understand this and do a great job facilitating the discussion.

At lunch, we launched right into our new seating arrangement that takes advantage of our two new porches. To help maintain some distance between cabin groups while eating, and to increase the amount of outdoor eating areas, this spring we doubled the size of our dining hall porch and extended the gable-end porch of the Hillside Lodge, which is one of the historic stone activity meeting lodges in camp. We effectively doubled our dining space at camp! Both of these new porches are really nice places to eat too. As you look out, they feel like you are high in the nearby trees, breezy and cooler. “Treetop Dining,” we call it. For lunch, Rick and his kitchen crew served us a classic meal of camp comfort food, his homemade mac-n-cheese, steamed broccoli, and freshly cut watermelon slices. The girls loved this warm cheesy dish making a second helping completely natural.

Warm sunny weather in the afternoon made our “swim demos” a welcome opportunity to cool off. We ask all of the girls to demonstrate their swimming ability to our team of lifeguards so we know where in the lake (shallow end vs. the deep end!) they can safely swim. No matter what their ability, we have a way for the girls to enjoy the lake at camp. Everyone gets a buddy tag! Our mountain stream-fed lake is always surprisingly chilly, and can be shocking even for confident swimmers who are used to warmer water. But with some getting used to the “refreshing” water, most girls do well after a few trips to the lake. Everyday, except Sunday when there are special events happening, there are two “free swim” times, when girls can take a dip in the lake if they like.

Tomorrow we’ll get to apply all this enthusiasm and excitement as the girls fill their day with camp activities. We’ll be shooting arrows, climbing rocks, and riding horses right after breakfast. There’ll be action everywhere. Be sure to visit the online photo gallery, which is available after you login to your parent account. Each day, we’ll post photos of what’s happening at camp. While we can’t promise we’ll get a shot of every girl everyday, we’ll do our best to give you a sense of life at camp. Just as it’s a joy for these girls to be here, it’s a real treat to peak into this world from the outside. I hope you are looking forward to it!

Today marked the last full day of our first session. It’s always a bittersweet day as we wrap up longterm projects at camp, recognize much of what we’ve accomplished over the course of the session, and celebrate the new bonds of friendship we now cherish. We spent part of the morning packing and moving luggage. Many girls who rode enjoyed a barn party down at the Riding Center. We gathered in the gym to watch a performance of the play, a production that incorporated characters from Rockbrook and the idea of time travel. We also built a time capsule asking each cabin to select an item to add to the collection. Rockbrook girls in the future will probably be surprised to find stickers, bracelets, a surgical mask, and a yogurt container, among the representative items from 2021. After dinner, we assembled on the hill to hear campers and counselors share their thoughts and memories about the different activities at camp, “toasting” their favorites. Another busy full day of camp.

As the evening arrived, the whole camp gathered for our traditional closing campfire ceremony, our “Spirit Fire.” It is now 100 years ago that the very first Spirit Fire was held on the big rock overlooking the Rockbrook lake. Like that first gathering, we lit a fire on that same spot to celebrate and reflect upon our time together at camp. We sang traditional songs, and listened to campers and counselors speak about what camp has meant to them. Many girls who were new to Rockbrook this year told how they were nervous arriving, but soon realized that camp was a place where they could be themselves, “imperfections and all,” and still be accepted, included, and loved. Staff members too spoke about being surprised how friendly Rockbrook is to even someone who has never been here before. Several speakers were overcome with emotion where they had trouble continuing. And soon, there were sniffles, and soft whimpers coming from the crowd.

This was a fitting way to end what was overall an emotional session. Camp this session was so deeply felt by everyone here, staff and campers alike. It was as if the pandemic had bottled up our need for human connection, and now at camp, as we re-experienced the joys of romping with friends in the real world, we could finally feel again. We could smile, hug and be hugged, relax and reconnect. The relief we all felt was so intense, many of us couldn’t help but get a little weepy with happiness. The Spirit Fire focused those feelings, but with a touch of sadness, since we knew that our time together this summer was coming to a close.

So thank you for being a part of this special place and special experience for girls. Thank you for recognizing the value of camp for your daughters, and thank you for trusting Rockbrook to provide the kind of summer haven they need. We look forward to seeing everyone again very soon.