Jun

24

Junior 1

Filed Under Events | Leave a Comment

See new pictures in the gallery.

This was such a busy week. Last Sunday after church we went to a wedding reception for Caleb and Emily MacGill. I worked on Program Team with Caleb summer 2003, and Emily worked at camp summer 2004. It was another Red Cliff romance. I’ve never been to a post wedding reception, but Emily wore her wedding dress, and Caleb wore his tux.

A work group came to camp the Friday before. There were 40 of them from Wisconsin. They cut all the firewood for the next year. A few of them were problematic and caused extra work for us. Sunday night when Andrew and I were heading down to our cabin we noticed a campfire by the boys cabins where the work group was staying. Sure enough, someone had built a poor fire ring and used branches lying around to build a fire on the grass. Not only did they have a fire in a nondesignated place in the middle of a national forest (where the chance of a fire at camp this summer is very high) they left it unattended. We put it out by throwing dirt on it. Some also went to the bottom of the cliffs and scratched their names and some other things in the area we rappel. We breathed a sigh of relief when they left this past Friday morning.

We knew the week was going to be busy for the SALT counselors because there were two shifts for every meal. A wonderful blessing was when the speaker, Bill Cornett, told us that he wanted his two teenage boys to minister and work while they were here, so we had 2 extra people on our crew. They were hard workers and even came to help in jobs we said they didn’t have to do. The oldest boy, Sam, really liked it here and asked to stay the rest of the summer. After much prayer Mr. Dean and the Cornett’s decided he could. We will now have 3 kids on each team.

The week of camp had 39 kids in grades 4-6. This week of camp is different from any other in that the kids have Adventure Groups instead of games in the afternoon. They rotate between hiking to the cliffs, hiking to the tie hack camp, hiking to the big rock, and fishing. The kids really enjoy it. Our week was so busy we didn’t get to go on any hikes until Friday (after the work group left), and even then I stayed at camp with a camper while Andrew went to the tie hack camp. In the late 1800s this area was used to cut ties for the railroad. There are remains of cabins throughout, but this particular area has several cabins, a bigger meeting room, stable, and several rusted tools. None of the buildings have a roof, but it’s a really neat piece of history.

Thursday morning a skeleton rappelling crew took the work group rappelling. I stayed at camp, but Andrew got to go. As Andrew was sitting at his job one of the other staff members yelled over to him, “Andrew, you’re about to have a mountain goat in your back pocket!” Sure enough there was a mountain goat about 5 feet away from him. The Loftus’s were amazed there was a goat around there. Apparently it was scrawny, and Mr. MacGill mentioned it could have been chased to that area by wolves. The rappellers also saw a B-1 Lancer supersonic bomber flying down the valley. It was about eye level with the top of the cliffs and was banking from side to side as it followed the Green River.

My brother Matthew had a wild cabin. On Friday night one of the boys put barbecue chips in his pillow and crunched them all up. They got his pillow and pillowcase all greasy. Another camper had his magnifying glass taken away because he was using it to burn things. He said they were fun though. One of his campers got saved Friday night. There were one or two other campers who were saved during the week. One scary situation was during rest time a girl swallowed 2 quarters and started choking on them. Thankfully they had slid just right so she was still able to breathe a little bit. She threw them up and ended up being fine.

This weekend most of the staff went various places. On Saturday after everyone had left we went to New Fork Lake. We wanted to go tubing, but didn’t have a lot of time. Everyone got in the lake at one point on a tube and at least floated in the lake. The water was a little cold, but not too bad. Andrew and I basically got our legs wet. It was very relaxing and beautiful.

Jun

17

Staff Training

Filed Under Events, Travel | 3 Comments

Staff Training

See the new pictures in the gallery.

Staff training began with 9 inches of snow on the ground. The melting snow made the ground soggy and hindered travel – even across the grounds. It’s very pretty, especially on Gypsum (the mountain visible from the lodge), but it forced some changes of plan.

Training includes things like camp policies and procedures, camp history, orientation with various activities, and preparation for counseling. The camp history is very interesting. I’m not sure that much of it is published anywhere. There is a lot of information, but it would be nice to see it all written down sometime. Policies and procedures are rarely interesting, but the unique location of the camp requires some different twists on typical camp practices.

Orientation included acclimatization. The camp is at 8600 feet above sea level. The cliffs for which it is named are just less than 9000 feet. Most of the staff has needed a week and a half to get used to the thin air. We played lots of outside games that helped get us used to less oxygen. When you’re not used to the air, even a walk from the pavilion (at the bottom of the hill) to the lodge (at the top of the hill – about 70 feet of change in elevation) can be a struggle.

We were scheduled to hike to the cliffs on the first day. The snow made the trail treacherous, so we played ultimate Frisbee in the meadow. We finally made the hike later during training. On Saturday (June 8th) we drove to the Green River Lakes near the headwaters of the Green River. The lakes are nestled between several mountains. The scenery is spectacular. On the second Friday of training, we hiked Little Sheep, a “hill” near the camp. The elevation at the top is about 10,000 feet. It was a brutal hike for anyone, especially those of us who were a little out of shape and not fully acclimated to the altitude. At the top there were beautiful views in every direction. The Teton Range was easily visible (about 50 miles away) and we could see nearly to Pinedale (30 miles away). It was quite windy at the top. Some of the grass and trees were growing sideways because of the constant gale. On the north slope there are snow banks. A popular activity for staff is to sled down the snow on plastic bags. Melanie did it once and sort of hurt herself. I didn’t do it at all. I didn’t want to wet and didn’t want to hike back up. A few people didn’t mind; they slid down several times.

The cliffs at Red Cliff provide more than a nice vista. During camp, we use them for rappelling. There is a 40-foot cliff and a 150-foot cliff. Melanie and I are both on the rappelling team, since Daniel York, the program team leader, wants to run as many lines as possible. Melanie will suit up rappellers with harnesses and I will supervise and man the fireman belay at the bottom of the cliff. The climbers are double-belayed, which means that there are two ropes on them for safety. My crew at the bottom can stop someone from falling simply by pulling on our rope.

One of the other events during training was the first God-Focused Whetstone conference at Red Cliff. The Whetstone conference is a two-day series of sessions and workshops for pastors and laymen. It attempts to provide them with useful ministry tools and needed spiritual refreshment. Many pastors in the inter-mountain west have small works in difficult areas. Mormonism is widespread and there are few people to begin with. The keynote speaker for the conference was Dr. Frank Hammrick, president of Positive Action for Christ ministries. Pastor Aaron Young of Elko, Nevada, and Pastor Jason Ehmann of Rexburg, Idaho, also spoke for some of the session. The guys on staff attended the evening sessions. Todd Wood, a pastor in Idaho Falls, organized and spearheaded the conference.

It looks like Melanie and I will be taking the SALT counselors to a church in Lander, WY sometime fairly soon. The church there has no pastor at the moment. Its former pastor and his family have moved to Greenville to take care of his in-laws. Mr. Dean says that we’ll probably have the whole service, so I’ll be preaching – possibly twice.

Next week is Junior Camp I. Pray that it goes well. I think the counselors are well-prepared, but I’m not sure that they think so.

Jun

10

Anniversary

Filed Under Events | 2 Comments

Today is our 1st wedding anniversary.

Jun

10

The end of the trip

Filed Under Travel | Leave a Comment

Yellowstone

We scheduled Thursday and Friday in Yellowstone. We started early on Thursday morning. Right after going into the East Entrance, we hit road construction. The road perched on the side of the mountain was being rebuilt for about 10 miles. We had to wait 30 minutes before we could proceed into the park.

Thursday we traveled along the northern part of the park. We drove from the East Entrance to Mammoth Hot Springs and back around. We hit Yellowstone Lake, the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, Tower-Roosevelt, and Mammoth Hot Springs. On the way back we stopped at Norris Geyser Basin as well.

As would be expected, the scenery was beautiful. There was still a lot of snow on the higher peaks and there were almost no tourists to block the views. The only large collections of people were around rare wildlife.

We did see a lot of wildlife. My family likes to look at them, and we had plenty of opportunity. We saw dozens of buffalo, many elk and deer, two wolves, some coyotes, a bighorn sheep, a black bear, and a grizzly bear. Back near our lodge we also saw some moose.

Of course, Yellowstone is also known for its unusual geologic features. The canyon is pretty, but the springs and geysers are more interesting. The Mammoth Hot Springs were almost entirely turned off when we visited. There were a few trickles of water on a few springs, but most of the larger, more famous springs were dry.

Friday was the day to look at the geysers and hot springs on the western and southern parts of the park. The geyser basins were neat. Most of them were pretty active. We saw Old Faithful (the other place with lots of tourists), and while it was erupting, my camera battery died.

Grand Tetons

After we left Old Faithful we drove down through Grand Teton National Park. We didn’t see wildlife, but the scenery more than compensated. We basically drove straight to Jenny Lake in the southern section of the park. There was a boat to go across the lake, but we decided that we didn’t have enough time (we were driving all the way to Pinedale). They also had canoes and kayaks for rent, but wouldn’t start renting them for a couple of days until the water warmed up a little more.

Jackson is at the southern edge of the Tetons, We had supper there and drove on to Pinedale to stay with at the Loftus house for the night.

Saturday

On Saturday we went to Dan Kimball and Mary Maes’ wedding in Rock Springs. The wedding was nice, though we were trying not to laugh during it; Dan and Mary were trying not to laugh too. It was quite different from a Greenville wedding – people didn’t seem to know what to do all the time.

After the wedding we drove back up to Jackson to meet my family. We had supper at the Bar J Chuckwagon. The Bar J serves a western meal and performs a live western music show after supper. The meal was incredible and the show was hilarious and a lot of fun.

After church on Sunday we drove up to camp with my family. The road was pretty good by all accounts. We hiked to the cliffs and then settled into one of the cabins.

In the morning my family headed back down the mountain to drive toward Chicago. Our vacation was essentially over and we were starting camp.

Jun

6

Trip update

Filed Under Travel | Leave a Comment

We are currently at a public library in Denver, so we thought we’d try to give an update.

The computer is still down. We looked a little bit today for a new hard drive but the picking was slim. Mel’s brother Matt is flying to Denver today, and he’s bringing his laptop, so we’ll be able to post throughout the summer at camp.

Here’s what happened on our trip.

Monday, May 28

This was another traveling day for us. We drove across South Dakota. It was beautiful out, but kind of windy. We decided to go through the Badlands on the way to Rapid City to help save time on Tuesday. We got to the Badlands around supper time. It is such weird country. You kind of have to be there to understand what it’s like. As we got to the end of the Badlands loop, there was a thunderstorm brewing in the distance. This happened to be the direction of Rapid City, which is where we were going to stay for the night. We ended up staying in Wall, SD because the thunderstorm looked really bad.

Tuesday, May 29
We drove through Custer State Park to view the animals. We were able to see buffalo and other such animals. The funniest stop was the burros. As you came around the corner there were several vehicles stopped and over a dozen burros in the road. When a vehicle would stop, several burros would step up to the car. Andrew’s family had the forsight to close their windows, so the burro only steamed up the glass. But we had our window down to take pictures. We ended up with a burro sticking his head in the car. He sniffed around and wouldn’t get his head out. I was laughing very hard, and Andrew was taking pictures. In order to get him to pull his head out we had to start driving off.

We went to Mount Rushmore toward evening. It was raining, so we staying inside most of the time. The monument was a lot smaller and farther away than I thought it would be.

Wednesday, May 30
We decided to take a detour in Wyoming to go to Devil’s Tower, another national monument. After entering the area we were looking at a prairie dog colony when some people Anthony knew from BJ showed up! What a small world.

Devil’s Tower was pretty neat. We walked up to the base of it (which is still quite a ways below it) and watched kids climbing on the rocks. We saw two people headed to climb up the tower, but we didn’t see anyone actually on the way up.

From Devil’s Tower we headed to Elephant’s Head Lodge between Cody and Yellowstone. In order to get there, we had to drive over a mountain range. At the bottom was a really cool canyon with some nice scenery and a waterfall. At the top we ran into snow. It started as rain, but in the higher elevations was fairly heavy snow. We got to Cody around dark. The cabin at the lodge was really tiny, but we never spent much time there so it wasn’t too bad.

Sadly, our pictures from Monday and Tuesday are on the laptop that isn’t working. We are hoping to be able to recover them when we get back to Greenville. We’ll post more pictures once we get a computer to download them off the camera. If you want to see pictures check out Abby’s posts.