Colorado | One.
I can see Long’s Peak to my right as we taxi down the runway. I am heading home for one day for my dear sister’s graduation, then quickly returning to Colorado for nine weeks of working with kids and the raddest humans. Just bellow Long’s is Twin Sisters under whose shadow Camp Timberline resides. A few days ago I was living at the camp, waking early to sit on the lodge porch and drink coffee in the porch swing. Snow still dusted the Sister’s peaks, the sun and clouds blanketing them throughout the day bringing afternoon snow one week and afternoon lighting storms the next. I feel as though I experienced all four seasons the first two weeks living in Rocky Mountain National Park.
We spent two weeks up at Camp T training and preparing for the 10 weeks of summer. I am privileged with the role of a Mountain Adventure Counselor for the last five weeks so I spent work week training on all the elements. I learned to facilitate the zip line, clipping in and unclipping numerous fellow staff members as we rode all day so all the MA counselors could learn. I stood atop the complex where the high ropes begins, my fingers freezing against the cool wires. I dropped from the Gut Check and swung from the Silencer, butt-belayed the single leap and belayed the rock wall. We would escape to the lodge for warmth and lunch, heading back out into the cold and continual carabiner clipping and unclipping until dinner.
My most favorite memory from these first two weeks was the day it snowed. It began later in the afternoon so we hid in the cold party barn to review rules and procedures for a few hours. We finished at six and were released with, “Go to dinner and it looks like it’s snowing.” We hurried outside to find the ground white and flakes still falling. Running, laughing and screaming we made it to the lodge for dinner greeted by the long, warm picnic tables and Christmas music. Standing on the benches with cups of coffee in hand we sang “I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas” and “All I Want for Christmas is You” sitting only momentarily to take bites of our tacos. The snow continued to fall, building up a thick blanket on the sports field bellow the lodge. Once finished my cabin and I raced to lace up our boots, grab a frisbee, and head to the snow field to play. Our lungs filled with cold air as we played ultimate frisbee, fingers turning red from the snow. Friends gathered above on the lodge deck to watch then slowly trickled down to the amphitheater scrapping snow from the benches to begin a snow ball fight. Frisbees and snow balls flew threw the air.
For an hour we dared not think about cold fingers or difficulty breathing in cold and altitude, instead we played. The evening ended with an intense dodge ball tournament in the Rocky Dome. This was the first night I slept soundly after a rough few days of insomnia due to altitude sickness (it’s a real thing, I learned about it during wilderness first aid certification the second week). In the morning when I awoke the snow had melted, only a few patched clung to the ground in the shade of trees.
It’s so different here, living with people from Minnesota, Wisconsin, Texas, North Carolina, and Colorado, just to name a few. We don’t know each other well but we are a team. We eat together, do laundry together, drive all over together, and it is just the beginning of the summer. Currently I am working with the day camp program, settling in a new town and church every week to put on a VSB type camp, but sports and adventure focused. I have no car, am living out of two suitcases, smell like sunscreen 24/7, my bed this week was my hammock strung from the ceiling beams in a churches student center. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.
