Director Jud's Blog

All Camp Day has arrived! We cannot believe how fast this session is flying by- but you know what they say… when you’re having fun. Campers and counselors alike have been having lots of fun with our awesome activities. Whether it’s sending it on the wakeboard, ripping through the SMA bike trails, rocking out on our climbing rocks, or making friendship bracelets during power hour, this group has spent the past week making memories and bonding. We are half-way through this session and are so excited for all the fun coming in week 2. For now, let’s reflect on the first half of this first session.

We’ve had two rounds of four total overnights: canoeing, climbing, and two wakeboarding overnights (woooohoooo). Campers had fun spending the night camping away in some amazing campsites, making mountain pies for dinner and telling stories around a fire. Even campers who stayed behind enjoyed a fire and some s’mores back at camp!

We’ve done lots of hiking this session at SMA. Campers took in the beautiful views of the Rocky Ridge Hike and had fun taking a dip in the trough on the Trough Creek hike (and did you hear about the giant leaning rock?). There were even a few campers who hiked 2,074 steps on the 1,000 Steps Hike (yes, they counted).

Between volleyball tournaments, soccer games, and tennis matches, we’ve played sports aplenty this session! For a non-competitive camp, the competition is pretty fierce!

Each evening, campers and staff have had so much fun with our all-camp activities. We’ve gone disco roller skating, out for ice cream, played Jud games, and flexed our creative muscles at the invention convention! Campers have had fun dressing up and having a chance to be silly with the whole camp.

We’re so lucky to be based in beautiful Huntingdon, PA, and as a camp we strive to give back to our community. Yesterday, our campers and counselors embarked on community service based activities aimed at doing just that! Some went to clear the bike paths on the Allegrippis trails, others went to the Little Juniata river to put in stairs at a canoeing take-out. We also had a group head into State College to host a lemonade stand to raise money for Alex’s Lemonade Stand, a non-profit foundation dedicated to childhood cancer research. These activities help us to serve our community (and it doesn’t hurt that the activity time will count towards school service requirements).

Today during all-camp day, our campers will be doing a (much needed) cabin cleanup and performing skits in everyone’s favorite garb: BUNK JUNK!!!!! For dinner, we will head up to Raystown Lake and have a BBQ.

We’ve had such an amazing time during the first week of Session 1 and are so excited for the week to come! We have some amazing activities coming up (did somebody say White Water Rafting?) so stay tuned for more updates about our summer camp adventures.