Director Jud's Blog

Stone Mountain Adventures’ second session of 2016 is well underway and the atmosphere here is incredible! From the opening day of camp, all those who were here from first session made all the new campers feel really welcome in their new home for coming weeks. The energy levels that were created from the go were amazing!

As with every session, campers started off by taking belay school and swim check. I am happy to report that all of them passed with flying colors and are now ready to belay whilst rock climbing, and can all go swimming as part of their activities. Swimming has been a welcome relief from the hot temperatures we have seen over the past week.

Despite the heat, we have been thoroughly enjoying all the activities we have done so far, with many of them being water-based. Activities like canoeing down the Little Juanita river, wake boat fun, stand up paddle board and sailing have been super popular so far.

We have played a variety of sports such as soccer, touch rugby, volleyball, tennis and softball, as well as making sure we get a chance to cool off at one of the many swimming spots in the nearby state parks. We have also played a round of Frisbee golf at Juniata College, who are always happy to have us play around their facilities!

Biking on the Allegrippis Trails has been as thrilling as ever, along with a couple of visits to the skills park which has offered a nice variety to activities. Arts studio took a trip to Hunters Rock which gave them an opportunity to draw some of the beautiful scenery we are lucky enough to be surrounded by here at SMA.

There have been two overnights in the first week. The first was a wakeboarding overnight at Raystown Lake. The weather was fantastic and everyone was wide-awake bright and early to get out on the water. The other was a rock climbing overnight at SHarffers Rock where we stay in a wonderful rustic cabin surrounded by numerous climbing opportunities. Both overnights enjoyed the traditional campfire accompanied by the now legendary mountain pies for dinner!

Evening activities have been full of an amazing amount of energy. From the first evening of Jud Games, a camp favored tradition, the excitement level was set for a fantastic session. Invention Convention and disco bowling were as crazy as ever; the kids all got into the spirit with copious amounts of bunk junk! Our daily evening meeting also took a road trip to a nearby park and was followed by ice cream! The ‘Power Hour of Freedom’ has been full of games of knockout, with basketball proving even more popular than usual this session. There have also been many melodical tones emanating from Rock Bottom from our budding musicians here at camp. Friendship bracelet making is also a very common past time and a great way for kids to remember each other after camp has ended!

We are just over a week into session two and everybody is getting fully into the spirit of Stone Mountain Adventures. Some really close bonds have been formed in the relatively short time, we have all been together and I’m looking forward to seeing how the existing friendships continue to grow and how new ones will emerge! It is sure to be crazy and loads of fun and we wouldn’t have it any other way! Stay tuned for more updates and don’t forget to add ‘Camp-Director Judson Millar’ on Facebook to see a few photos from the session.

Summer Camp for Teenagers

2 week teen camp

Rock climbing teen summer camp