Ducks @ Oregon - University of Oregon

Overnight Hike

Korrin B.

June 28, 2009 - 2:00 PM

Today we returned from our overnight hike. Each camping session, each group goes on an overnight hike. It is a great time for the campers to bond and learn outdoor skills. During orientation, we have been doing everything that the campers will be doing, so this also included the overnight.

At first, I wasn't too excited about it. The last time I actually went camping was when I was a lot younger and didn't mind so much about living the rough and grungy life. However, camp is all about pushing one's limits, so I packed up my backpack and got ready to go.

Yesterday we split into our villages. These are the groups of counselors that we will be living and working with for the rest of summer. I got put in the Namelachum cabin in the Overlook village. Overlook is the village for the youngest campers, the nine-year-olds. The picture with this post is of the counselors I'll be working with in my village. Our village is back in the trees behind us. Overlook is close to the dining hall and the lake. It is so cute! The overnight hike was done with the village we had been assigned.

We all grabbed food from the cafeteria and tents from the outdoor shed and began to walk. Since we have the youngest kids, our overnight camping spot was actually pretty close. It probably only took us about fifteen minutes to hike there. Once we got there we set up our tents and began our two-hour long attempt at starting a fire.

Two hours later, we had finally gotten our damp twigs to have enough of a flame that if we stuck our hot dogs and burgers directly into the flame, they were able to get hot enough to eat. We had to constantly blow on it to keep it going. Then, we had to keep it going long enough to make smores! The best part! We had some left over chocolate chip cookies, so we started making smores by substituting the graham crackers for chocolate chip cookies! It was amazing! So delicious!

During the smore making, we went around and shared interesting facts about each other. It felt good to be able to have this time to bond with the rest of my staff before the kids showed up.

We all decided that we wanted to hike over to a nearby porta-potty before going to sleep, so we left as a group. The porta-potty was off in a beautiful meadow by the lake. We all just stood around and took in the beauty. Then, we decided to circle up and discuss expectations under the stars by the lake. It had gotten dark while we were at the meadow. After our discussion was over, we all turned on our flashlights to hike back through the forest to our tents. This should be easy right? Our tents were only like five minutes away. Well, it turned out to be a lot harder than we thought!

We got completely lost out in the forest. We wandered around with our flashlights for over an hour and ended up on one of the other Fresh Air Fund's campgrounds, Camp Tommy! It was tiring, but it was also a lot of fun. I love the excitement and adventure of getting lost! You learn so much during that time.

By the time we did make it back though, we were so tired, so everyone got in their tents to go to bed. Before I got in my tent, I stood in the dark forest and looked around me. The forest was full of fireflies! They kept lighting up and the whole forest looked like it was full of twinkling Christmas lights. It was such a magical moment. The overnight I had dreaded had become another moment where I realized the true beauty and importance of this program. I did end up with three ticks from it that had to be removed by the nurse, but I figured it was just part of the experience!