Author Archives: Jeff Carter

Jeff Carter is the Director of Rockbrook Camp for Girls in Brevard, North Carolina. He attended Davidson College, earned a master's from Harvard University, and holds a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in the History of Religions. He has taught at Vanderbilt University, Davidson College, and the University of South Carolina. He received a Fulbright Fellowship to study in Nigeria, is an All-American college athlete, and a published author. Beginning in 1988, he worked for eight years as a camp hiking and rock climbing guide before becoming, with his wife Sarah, the owners and directors of Rockbrook.

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July 14, 2015August 11, 2021 • Children • Jeff Carter

A Book of Faces

A Middler-aged camper asked me the other day, “Isn’t it hard to get Seniors to come to camp if they can’t have their phones?” I reminded her that all campers, no matter how old they are, and in fact the counselors too (except in the staff lounge), are not allowed to have a cellphone at camp, but I think I know what she meant. She knew, maybe from experience or observing older girls at home, that cellphone use is almost constant, that most of us, once we have a personal smartphone, tend to use it all the time… text messages, social media posts (Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Snapchat!), telephone calls, and email. Once it’s in our pocket, the buzz of electronic notifications punctuates our daily experience. This perceptive young girl was suggesting that the allure of that buzz might be powerful enough to prevent girls from attending camp.

It’s a great question when you think about it, “Why are teenage girls willing, albeit reluctantly perhaps, to give up their phones for several weeks?” Would you be willing to do that? Think of all the news you would miss, and the people who couldn’t contact you! I suppose there are young girls out there who do not attend summer camp because they feel they simply can’t live without their phones, just as they might believe they can’t do without their mother’s home-cooked meals or an air-conditioned private bedroom, but there are hundreds of girls who do make that sacrifice.

Here’s why. I believe it’s because they, perhaps unconsciously, know being at camp is much better than whatever their cellphones (and other electronic forms of entertainment) provide. The sacrifice is “worth it.” Their community of Rockbrook friends provides a book of faces far superior to Facebook. The daily flood of enthusiasm for creativity, adventure, and outdoor action outshines every Instagram image. The camp songs, the heartfelt conversations, the nightly “Highs, Lows and Funnies” in the cabins, the cheers and support from everyone around you arrive faster than you can type 140-character tweets. A girl could snap, and pin, and “like,” and “share,” all day long and she wouldn’t come close to feeling the authentic joy camp provides. Without flickering intermediaries, camp is real life, fully lived with real people, expressing real emotions. It’s a life too easily forgotten while staring at a screen, but for those girls willing to trust themselves and find the confidence to engage those around them, camp is also a really good life. Some claim it can’t be beat! …completely phone-free.

For about a fourth of the camp, today’s adventures included whitewater rafting on the Nantahala River. With our second group of July Mini session girls eager to raft and a few of the full session campers who had not yet gone, we put together two multi-raft trips, one that began the night before with camping at our outpost property located near the river in Swain County, and the other that ran in the afternoon following a picnic lunch at the water’s edge. The morning trip saw a little extra excitement as a passing thunderstorm forced the crew off the river for a few minutes. Fortunately, we had a warm, dry bus (It was trailing the trip on the road paralleling the river.) ready nearby where we could all take shelter during the storm. When the coast was clear, the rafts were off again to finish paddling the river.

Rafting for Rockbrook girls is big fun. It’s a nice combination of high adrenaline adventure (wearing cool gear!), lighthearted silliness with your friends in the raft, and hilarity as each bumpy rapid and splash of the frigid water (53 degrees!) erupts wild screams of delight. It’s even better when someone unexpectedly falls out of the boat and everyone, while laughing of course, scrambles to pull her back in. Rafting is also a chance for the girls to chat and sing with each other as they paddle, posing for photos and greeting everyone passing by in other boats and onshore. You can imagine how this much exuberance gets people’s attention, and since we’re the only girls camp authorized to raft the Nantahala (We’ve had a USFS permit since the early 1980s), it’s not uncommon for us to hear, “That’s the rafting camp.”

When it comes to having a full camp day, our mini session Senior campers know how to do it! For them, following today’s rafting, we ate a quick pizza dinner, and then turned right around for an evening trip to Sliding Rock. It was fantastic. We arrived just after another rainstorm so we had the rock all to ourselves. The girls had a blast sliding down the 60-foot natural water slide to the pool at the bottom, often with hands in the air and screaming all the way down. Everyone slid as many times as they wanted, until as it was getting dark, we loaded up the vans for a short ride to Dolly’s Dairy Bar. A cup or a cone of “Rockbrook Chocolate Illusion” or another flavor was the perfect way to top off the evening. Back at camp about 10pm, the girls took no time heading straight to bed. It’s been another full— definitely great— camp day.

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July 12, 2015May 15, 2020 • News • Jeff Carter

A True Festival

We welcomed our 2nd July Mini session campers to Rockbrook this morning, some returning to camp after one or more previous summers, and some for their very first time. For all 103 of them however, all the waiting and anticipation could finally bubble up as excitement, “smiles and pep” like one song puts it. Today, the gorgeous, cool yet sunny weather added even more energy throughout the check in process— greeting the office folks, checking out the latest RBC gear (green seems to be a color this year…), chatting with the nurses, enjoying a quick “hair appointment” (all clear there), but most importantly, meeting the fantastic counselors and new cabin mates they’ll live with for the next 12 days. It’s normal for this busy excited process to include a little anxiety as well, as campers and parents feel nervous about being apart or unsure about “how it will go,” but there didn’t seem to be much of that today as the enthusiastic, optimistic spirit of all the great people here carried the mood. By about 12:30 we had everyone settled in their cabins, groups get-to-know-you games happening, and tours of the camp finding their way to every activity area.

Just before lunch, we assembled all the campers and counselors on the grassy hill beneath the old walnut tree for a few songs, introductions, announcements and skits. Like most gatherings at camp, it included costumes, lots of clapping and singing, and plenty of volume throughout. The three Line Heads (who are veteran counselors supervising each age group) entertained everyone with poems announcing the “Mop Awards” given to the cabin with the highest inspection scores for the week. It’s an exciting honor to win, and then to keep the award, a decorated mop, in their cabin for the coming week.

I don’t talk about our camp food very much in these blogs, but I could, because it’s awesome! Rick and his dedicated crew in the kitchen, for 6 years now, have been consistently serving healthy, made-from-scratch meals keeping all of us happily fed. Considering the baked goods (muffins, breads, cakes, cookies!), the fresh guacamole, pasta salads, soups, salad dressings, and international camp dishes, including vegetarian and gluten-free entrees, and so on, this kitchen cooks! Here’s a fun fact; in one week the Rockbrook girls typically eat 500 lbs of apples, 300 pounds of bananas, 4 bushels of peaches, 4 bushels of oranges, and multiple gallons of blueberries, blackberries, and strawberries. Yikes, that’s a lot of fruit! Partly this is because we keep a table on the dining hall porch stocked with fresh fruit all day so the campers can cruise by and grab a snack, but it’s also because Rick likes to include at least one fruit and a vegetable on his lunch and dinner menus. Today’s lunch was a good example— Rick’s homemade Mac-n-Cheese, baked with three kinds of cheese, steamed green beans, with sliced pineapple and blueberries… A perfect first meal at camp. For dinner, Rick served his famous homemade barbeque. He roasted 12 massive pork butts, rubbed down thoroughly with a complicated blend of peppers, coffee, and other spices. He made his own vinegar-based sauce, and completed the menu with fresh coleslaw, buns, blackberries, and Rice Krispie treats for dessert. I could go on and on about how well we eat at Rockbrook. It’s just that good!

After a brief rest hour, during which the Mini Session girls squeezed in their “swim demos,” the whole camp dressed up for a special event to be held on the grassy lawn of the Clarke-Carrier House in the center of camp. Built between 1895 and 1889 by H.P. Clarke, the father of Rockbrook’s founder Nancy Carrier, this house was designed by noted Asheville architect Richard Sharp Smith. The campers walk past the house on their way to the Rockbrook Stables for horseback riding, but today it was the scene of a spectacular Renaissance Fair.

First, we announced the event so the campers could dress for the occasion… colorful dresses, ribbons, jester hats, flowered headbands, and hairstyles. Drummer Billy Zanski set up a drum circle and played while the girls arrived, and they found more than 10 different activities, renaissance music playing, and several different snacks. There was a catapult that launched water balloons, a “photo booth” complete with a variety of Renaissance-themed props (crowns and scepters, for example), a juggler wandering around (me!) and an inflated jousting game. Nearby, counselors were braiding flowers and ribbons into hair, painting colorful designs on faces, and offering simple henna temporary tattoos. One path led to a fairy garden with twinkling lights and bubbles, while another gathered girls around a story teller. There were roasted turkey legs to go around, lemonade to drink, popcorn, cotton candy and snow cones to enjoy too. There was so much to do, the girls had a blast wandering around sampling everything. It was a true festival, made extraordinary by the crowd of happy girls, the music and historic camp setting. Good camp fun, right out of the gate!

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July 11, 2015October 16, 2024 • Videos • Jeff Carter

Second Session Video Part Two

We’ve got another treat for you from Robbie and Go Swan Filmworks. Robbie again spent a day shooting scenes from around camp, beautifully capturing a few of the sweet moments that make up life at Rockbrook.

The final edited video is a little less than 2 minutes long, and is great fun to watch.

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July 10, 2015May 25, 2020 • News • Jeff Carter

Guiding Principles

One of the questions we ask parents in our post-camp survey is to identify the most important factor that led them to choose Rockbrook as their daughter’s camp. There are more than 28 residential summer camps in this area of North Carolina each with different strengths, program opportunities, and traditions. With all these options, it’s interesting to learn what parents see as distinctive about Rockbrook, and to think about why that distinction matters.

The last few years of results show a trend. The top reason people have selected Rockbrook, according to the survey, is that they received a trusted recommendation about the quality of the camp; a friend or family member loved Rockbrook and highly recommended it. That’s good to know that we have “happy campers” heading home after camp, and that their parents find Rockbrook remarkable enough to tell others about it (though I’ve also heard parents say they wish they could keep RBC a secret!), but that’s somewhat predictable. It’s easy to imagine that parents would select a camp after receiving a “word of mouth” endorsement that reflects the camp’s positive reputation.

The next reason is more surprising. Parents said they selected Rockbrook because they valued the camp philosophy, much more, in fact, than the camp’s program opportunities. So parents aren’t choosing Rockbrook only because we offer amazing outdoor adventure trips, excellent horseback riding instruction, or an array of really cool craft activities (though we clearly do). They aren’t drawn, at least most importantly, to Rockbrook’s vintage camp setting with its log cabins, stone lodges, dense forests with rock outcroppings and waterfalls (though the natural beauty of RBC is very special). It’s not the staff members, the food, or even the directors that make Rockbrook their choice. Overall, it has less to do with the “amenities” of camp than you might expect.

Instead, according to our survey, parents appreciate the ideals and values that guide the Rockbrook community. The “Spirit of Rockbrook” and how it affects their girls is important to them. It can be difficult to describe this philosophy— I’ve tried many times writing this blog —but the feeling of camp, Rockbrook’s culture that emphasizes kindness and generosity, mutual respect, and inclusion, is what makes this place stand out. Here too, I’m glad that our parents seem to be making this subtle distinction. They seem to understand how our camp philosophy matters when comes to insuring that Rockbrook girls gain many of the benefits of a summer camp experience. To their credit, many of our parents appreciate all the excellent outward features of Rockbrook, but value even further many of the principles guiding it along the way. Thank you parents!

Tonight we enjoyed an outdoor concert by Clint Roberts, a local singer, songwriter and musician. Clint writes and plays Americana music both as a solo act and with his band, The Foxfire. Recently, he released an EP entitled “Where the Heart is.” Starting at dinner time and playing into the “Twilight” period, Clint entertained the whole camp with his original compositions as well as several covers of songs by Lyle Lovett, Ryan Adams, and the Tallest Man on Earth. With Clint playing, the girls enjoyed a picnic of grilled hamburgers, potato chips, lemonade and watermelon with key lime pie for dessert. Sitting in their crazy creek chairs while they ate and listened, the girls had a great time chatting quietly, working on friendship bracelets, or just lounging with their friends in the evening shade. The whole event was delightfully relaxing… a memorable, special event together at camp.

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July 9, 2015May 8, 2020 • News • Jeff Carter

Blurred Emotions

It’s hard to say goodbye, but it’s especially difficult to leave good friends, and even more so when it may be a whole year before you see them again. That’s how we all felt this morning as the first July Mini Session campers finished their time at Rockbrook this summer— a little melancholy, wistful, even confused about what to do next. For everyone at camp, today marked a change. The Full Session girls suddenly had fewer camp companions, making most things feel oddly vacant, and the Mini Session girls were abruptly returned to the “real world” as parents began arriving by car. Reuniting with family members (parents, siblings and pets!) while simultaneously departing from their camp community… it can be an intense blur of emotions. As the goodbyes spread across the morning, it was very clear to me that these girls will miss each other. We hope the many wonderful memories gained this session will sustain their new friendships until next summer. Thanks to everyone, this first July mini session was a great one!

Meanwhile, camp life carried on at Rockbrook with adventure trips heading out of camp (a whitewater kayaking trip to section IX of the French Broad River for example) and the full array of in-camp activities in action. Both morning activity periods took a full slate of girls through our new zip line course. This summer we expanded our existing zip course by debuted two new zip lines and two different additional suspension bridges. Now when girls sign up, they spend an hour on the course, zipping high above tall rhododendron bushes, maneuvering over the different bridges, and screaming past the new office building for the 450-foot final zip. The entire course is beautifully harmonized with the natural features of camp, the massive rocks and waterways in the forest here. The first zip, for example, is a gentle ride, about 60 feet in the air, between rock faces that frame Stick Biscuit Falls. The course is truly a special experience. Calling it “scenic” would be a serious understatement, and the girls love it!

Warm summertime weather (high temperatures in the upper 80s) has been inspiring a great deal of activity at the Rockbrook lake lately. Not so much sun bathing —though there’s been some of that too— the girls have been swimming their “mermaid laps” increasing their tallies, inventing crazy poses flying through the air off of the diving board, zooming down “Big Samantha” our water slide, and just relaxing on a tube aimlessly floating in the cool water. Bright warm sunshine and the chilly mountain lake water make a wonderfully refreshing combination. It’s almost irresistible, prompting even several directors to join the crowd of campers getting wet during the open “free swim” periods before lunch and dinner. On days like this, the lake, like the dining hall during meals, is a community meeting place where everyone, campers and staff members, young and old alike, gather to enjoy the water and each others company. It’s a delightful place all day long.

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July 8, 2015May 12, 2020 • News • Jeff Carter

Wondrous Discoveries

Even in the driest weather, like that of the last few days, there are two creeks that flow through the center of Rockbrook. One is known around here as “Rockbrook Creek,” despite not having an official USGS name. It forms far above the camp, and as it descends the mountain, forms a 50-foot waterfall (“Stick Biscuit Falls”) just a short distance up the trail behind the new office building. It continues down under the dining hall, past the front of the Goodwill cabin, behind the back porch of the Curosty cabin, eventually making it into the French Broad River below. The other, much larger, creek is named “Dunns Creek” after the very large rock outcropping on the camp property called “Dunns Rock.” It too forms several impressive waterfalls on the property as it cascades down into the river valley. “Quentin Falls” and “Rockbrook Falls” are two of these waterfalls that are hiking destinations for the campers. We divert water from Dunns Creek, passing it along an aqueduct, to the Rockbrook lake, keeping it constantly supplied with clean, clear mountain stream water.

All this water, splashing down over and around the rocks of Rockbrook, which are really boulders strewn below Castle Rock and Dunns Rock, makes it a snap to discover amazing water creatures like, small fish, tadpoles, crawfish, worms, and salamanders, not to mention an array of bugs. That’s why during periods of free time around camp you can count on seeing girls stomping through the water, paper cup in hand, turning over rocks and staring intently into swirling pools. During activity periods, the “Nature” counselors will hand out small nets before heading out to explore one of the streams. There are wondrous discoveries all around us at Rockbrook.

Just the opposite of “Nature Deficit Disorder,” Rockbrook girls experience firsthand a superabundance of the Natural World. There are the impressive rocks and teeming creeks of camp, but there are also old growth trees, dense ferns and other forest plants, fauna, fungi and insects to encounter everyday. Spiders in the shower, crickets somewhere in your cabin, an owl or a bullfrog calling out at midnight: life at Rockbrook is immersed in Nature. The organic feeling of camp enriches our experience, calling the girls (sometimes literally) to dive in and ultimately providing the simply joy of loving the outdoors.

Tonight we held the closing campfire for our mini session girls. Like for all of the camp sessions at Rockbrook, we gathered everyone around the fire pit near the lake to reflect on our time together, and recognize what we’ve enjoyed, accomplished and learned at camp. The campers and counselors dressed in their red and white uniforms, and following a traditional program, sang songs and took turns speaking about what this session of camp has meant to them. One by one, from the youngest girls up to and including a few staff members, we heard sweet stories about how camp helped conquer fears, and allowed hidden talents to emerge. Mostly, the speakers recognized all the people, young and old, they now consider friends, and how they love the feeling of being at Rockbrook. Sarah spoke at the end reminding everyone that even during the school year, we can enliven some of these camp feelings…by being kind and generous, maybe a little silly and courageous at the same time. She reminded us that being outside with friends, away from our favorite flickering technology, is something we can do at home. We closed the program by lighting a white candle and sharing that flame with everyone, each camper and counselor holding their own small candle. Singing softly, the girls and their counselors spread out facing the lake, illuminating everything with golden candlelight. “Day is done; gone the sun…” It was a calm beautiful scene, and a perfect ending to a wonderful session.

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July 7, 2015February 15, 2021 • News • Jeff Carter

How to Make Forever Friends

The other day I heard a snippet of conversation between two campers talking about their friends. One girl explained, “I have friends at school, but my friends here at Rockbrook are my ‘forever friends.'” What a great way to put it! Friends made at camp are exactly that— so strong, so close, so meaningful, they last. It’s pretty clear. The people here at Rockbrook aren’t just companions or playmates; they’re not simply other girls assigned to your team, or brief acquaintances that happen to eat meals with you in the dining hall. Instead there’s a deepness to many of the friendships formed at camp, an emotional quality that makes relationships here more genuine and powerful.

Why camp friends are forever friends is an interesting question. What is it about summer camp that makes a difference when is comes to forming friendships? My first thought is that we make good friends at camp by virtue of spending so much time together. When you share all your meals, spend all your free time, and do so much together with the same small group of people, you are bound to grow closer. Consistent shared experience simply brings people together. And this togetherness of camp is almost inescapable considering the sleeping cabins holding 10 or more people (no private rooms here!), the lack of electronic devices (which are inherently isolating), and the collaborative character of all our camp activities. There can be moments of solitude for everyone at camp, but generally time at camp is a collective life that keeps us inter-acting with each other throughout the day. This makes good sense, by the way, if having fun is one of the goals of camp. After all, doing something with others is clearly more fun than doing it alone, whether it’s putting on a silly costume, paddling a whitewater raft, or eating a meal.

While this is a start, I suspect there’s more to understanding what drives camp friendships than simply being together and sharing core experiences. Perhaps more importantly, camp life also includes a set of ideals and values, a culture, that guides how we treat each other as a community doing things together. At Rockbrook, this camp culture starts with kindness and generosity. It respects and values everyone, creating enthusiasm and building genuine encouragement. Beginning with the directors, embodied by the staff members, and sustained by Rockbrook’s many traditions, there is a feeling here of warmth and acceptance where every girl is appreciated and supported. This culture makes it easy to cooperate instead of compete, to pitch in rather than check out, and to inspire more than criticize. The Rockbrook camp culture, quite intentionally, brings out these best qualities in people, campers and staff alike, making it a special place oddly different from what’s typically valued in other circles.

This, then, is the secret sauce. The nature of this culture, all of its practiced ideals, provides girls the freedom to explore who they really are, to develop the character and spirit of their “authentic selves.” In this way, camp empowers girls to trust themselves. Free of social judgment, camp life helps awaken confidence, giving girls the power to overcome their own assumptions about who they should be. I believe stripping away these assumptions and being genuine is what makes forever friendships possible. It feels good (“What a relief!”) to be true to yourself too, to be welcomed and nurtured by a real community. No posing needed. Instead, as camp teaches us to be brave personally, it establishes the basis for the most rewarding form of friendship.

So while we’re doing so much together at camp— riding, climbing, weaving, shooting, and playing, for example —we’re discovering that our true selves make the best friends, that being kind makes us happy, and being together like this is always more fun.

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July 5, 2015October 16, 2024 • Videos • Jeff Carter

Second Session Video Highlights

Robbie Francis of Go Swan Filmworks hung out at camp again this week dropping into different activities with his camera. Combined with a few still images and footage from our adventure trips, he’s edited a short highlights video for us.

It can sometimes be difficult to understand all that goes on at Rockbrook, or more importantly, how it feels for the girls to be here. This video does a fantastic job conveying a healthy slice of camp life.

Take a look! We think you’ll really enjoy it.

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July 4, 2015May 12, 2020 • News • Jeff Carter

Sheer Joy

We don’t take the 4th of July lightly around here. In fact, it might be the peak of the summer, combining everything we love about Rockbrook and then pushing it just a little higher, adding a tad more intensity, and turning up the volume… all, of course, just for the fun of it.

We began the day early, before the regular rising bell, like camp has for decades on the 4th, with the equestrian staff riding down the cabin lines shouting, “The British are coming!” The staff had braided red, white and blue ribbons into a couple of the horse’s tails and one had a small flag fixed to its saddle. As the campers woke to the sounds of hoof beats outside their cabins and all this strange yelling about “the British’ (which by the way, Paul Revere probably called them the “Regulars”), they stumbled out onto the hill, still dressed in their pajamas, for a flag raising ceremony led by the Hi-Ups and everyone reciting the Pledge of Allegiance and singing America the Beautiful.

At breakfast, the campers were met by the first wave of decorations meant to help celebrate the 4th of July. The dining hall had streamers, posters, ribbons, and balloons hung in every direction. We set a pile of red, white and blue head bands, stickers and temporary tattoos on all the tables, and combined with the campers’ own festive shirts, tights, and hats, the patriotic color scheme was elaborate, to say the least! Rick had eggs, sausage (veggie too) and oven roasted red potatoes for breakfast, and after singing several songs like “Yankee Doodle,” “Your a Grand Old Flag,” and Katy Perry’s “Firework,” the girls were definitely in the spirit of the day as they set out for their morning activities.

For the afternoon, we scheduled a fun, exciting series of all-camp relays that ran the campers in stages between the Alpine Tower at one end of the camp to the Landsports field to finish up. Part group games, part physical tasks, and part cooperation relays, the entire event challenged three teams (red, while and blue) comprised of girls mixed from all three age groups. Each team started by dressing and decorating themselves with washable body paint in their team color, and by creating a team cheer. Also, all the girls on each team selected an individual relay, a particular challenge to tackle and advance their team toward the finish.

There were 17 (!) different relays in all, so everyone had a role to play for their team. There were traditional relay race events like Dizzy Lizzy, Greasy Watermelon, Sponge and Bucket, 3-legged, and Egg and Spoon, but also silly challenges like moving marbles from one bucket of water to another using just you feet, and passing a banana backwards down a line of people lying on the ground, again using just your feet. One game used water pistols to roll a beach ball, another challenged the girls to sidestep while holding a balloon between a partner’s head, and still another required the group to thaw a frozen t-shirt as fast as possible. Dashing from relay to relay, the girls were so excited to finish their event and then cheer on their teammates as the mob grew larger the closer it got to the Landsports field. There we had music and watermelon to enjoy while the final events completed. We had a pie eating contest, and a crazy red, while and blue shaving cream fight at the end of the afternoon. But as a final surprise, Richie, Rockbrook’s builder and facilities manager, arranged to have a firetruck ready to spray a huge fountain of water up in the air. Instant rainstorm! With fun, danceable pop music blasting, the girls sweaty and messy from the relays and shaving cream, they had a complete blast together dancing around as the fire hose showered water. Almost unimaginably, it was a moment of sheer joy for everyone.

After cleaning up, we all enjoyed a traditional picnic on the hill, a yummy supper of grilled chicken breasts, baked beans, corn on the cob, and potato chips. We don’t serve soft drinks at camp ordinarily, but tonight we offered the girls each a can of Cheerwine, kept cold in the creek in front of the Goodwill cabin. For dessert it was shortbread, strawberries, blueberries and fresh whipped cream— red, white and blue.. again!

As night fell, the finale of the day was our own fireworks show. Chase was ready with glow sticks for all the girls and a playlist of fun music to blast during the show. For the next 35 minutes, we all enjoyed another dance party, as the girls twirled their glow sticks, sang along to the music and cheered with every sparkling blast in the air.

It’s hard to beat a day like this with one celebration after another, one exciting surprise after another. When you have all these great people having this much crazy fun, I can’t think of a better way to spend the 4th of July.

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July 3, 2015May 8, 2020 • News • Jeff Carter

Smiling Faces

Another remarkable thing about life at camp, something that distinguishes it from ordinary events at home and school, is that when you walk around and see camp girls interacting with each other and their counselors, you are very likely to see someone smiling. It often includes laughing too, but incredibly, there are smiles while doing crafts, grins jumping to avoid the gaga ball, smiles at the lake, atop a horse, while on belay climbing, even while just walking down the cabin line on the way to lunch. Our online photo gallery provides a glimpse of this, and while it’s not everyone at every minute, it’s almost unsettling how regularly you encounter a smiling face during your day at Rockbrook. Recently a mother and her daughter touring camp noticed it as well. The daughter said, “Everyone here is so nice and friendly,” referring to the smiling greetings she got throughout the tour.

The best way to understand this phenomenon, of course, is to attribute the smiles to how the girls are feeling at camp, to how relaxed and happy they are here. All of the fun things we do at camp contribute to this happiness, as does the fantastic food, and beautiful, wooded mountain setting, but I suspect this feeling of camp life is more essentially derived from our spirited community than from what have or what we do. Put differently, it’s our relationships with the caring group of people around us, based upon respect for one another, that inspires this deep feeling of comfort and happiness. It’s the people who make smiling the language of Rockbrook. Knowing you belong to this community of kind, “sweet” people, “nice and friendly” folks, is a powerful force. Feeling it, you can’t help but smile. I’d say we’re all fortunate to feel it, and smile, everyday at camp.

Today was a big day for adventure trips, with rock climbing, canoeing, zip lining, day hiking and kayaking all pulling campers out of their regularly scheduled activities. We announce these trips during meals, sometimes at dinner to sign up a trip leaving early the next morning, and sometimes at breakfast for shorter trips, like to our zip line course for example. The kayakers were particularly excited about their trip because it was an all day paddle down the lower section of the Green River, near Saluda, NC. This section of the Green is perfect for beginners because its class I and II rapids offer plenty of opportunities to practice ferrying and catching eddies while not being too difficult. Instructors Jamie, Marjorie Ann, Leland and Andria led 9 campers down the river. A highlight of the day was stopping to play at the “Surf Rapid,” a spot where a standing wave is formed in the river allowing boaters to scoot in, pointing up stream, and be held in place. Surfing in the mountains of North Carolina! Now after tackling the Green, these girls are excited to paddle more challenging rivers. Stay tuned, because next week, we’ve got plans!

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