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I have been slacking of late in my blog posting responsibilities and for that I apologize.  Since mid-January I have been driving all over New England and the eastern seaboard attending camp fairs, visiting prospective camp families, and spreading the Birch Hill word to everyone who will listen.  It seems that everywhere I go I meet people who have heard about us through a current or past camper or counselor and I love the excitement I am encountered with.

Last weekend I drove a long way for two camp fairs in the Philadelphia region.  I heard about the impending storm but I shrugged it off; growing up in New Hampshire has trained me to deal with anything snow/ice/cold related.  What I was not anticipating was a city crippled by the multiple feet of accumulation they received last Friday into Saturday.

The view from my sister's stoop in South Philly

Walking through the streets of South Philadelphia, where my sister lives, was like being in a setting from a post-apocalyptic 80’s movie.  Ragtag gangs of residents wielding shovels, de-icing salt, and winter get-ups you would only see in South Philly wandered around in awe of the storm, trying to locate and dig out their cars, stoops, and sidewalks.

A semi-cleared street

The municipality of Philadelphia had retrofitted garbage trucks with tire chains and massive plows to try to clear some of the streets.  I watched in amazement as a truck, barely able to squeeze through the parked cars, adeptly moved the snow down the street (to where, I do not know).

I ended up being stuck in Philadelphia for only a couple of days before I braved all of the news broadcasters’ warnings about staying off of the roads.  10 years of winter driving training in New Hampshire has given me the ability to maneuver through snow, sleet, ice, and all varieties of muck so I, again, shrugged off the warnings as if the media was just my overcautious, overprotective mother.  I realized quickly that the general population of Philadelphia also paid no heed to the winter advisories; there is nothing more dangerous than inexperienced city drivers trying to drive aimlessly in a blizzard.  It took only about 45 minutes to get out of the city and the highway, although strewn with stranded cars in all directions, was easy travel.  20 miles outside of the city there was barely a dusting of snow.  By the time I got to New York City the snow was entirely gone and the two feet of it on the roof of my truck was the only evidence of my weekend adventure.

This picture of the sun rising over Merrymeeting Lake last week was taken at about 7:30 AM.  My camera does not do justice to how gorgeous the lake was that day with the fresh snow, shining sun, and crisp morning air.

The view from Merrymeeting Lake Road on 1/21/10.

I am fortunate enough to get to see this sunrise in so many variations each morning on my “commute” to work.  Seeing the thick ice, though, reminds me just how long it will be until we can get our boat back in the lake to cruise the glassy water and pull all you campers on skis, wakeboards, and tubes.

What we got last night can only be called a dumping of snow.  At 11PM there was a dusting; less than one inch.  This morning I awoke at 7:30AM to texts and missed calls from friends who were out hitting the slopes reporting over one foot of fresh pow (powder).  I opened my curtains and, lo and behold, nearly one foot of fluffy, white, gorgeous snow.  Not wanting to brave the holiday crowds at the mountains, I decided to head over to camp to survey the scene.  Below is what I found:

Is this really camp?

Camp is literally buried in snow.  With my 4WD on I struggled up the driveway with snow drifts up to the hood of my car in some places.  While we had much more last winter while I was living in the Lodge, this is a great mid-season storm and the deep snow is a welcome sight.

Tomorrow will be a long day of shoveling decks, roofs, and driveways, but today, at least for a few hours this afternoon, I will be out shredding the pow pow (snowboarding) at nearby Gunstock.

Today was an epic day at camp.  The sun was shining, the lake was frozen solid, and we had some guests; counselors from last summer (and next summer) Jenn and Lauren.

From left to right: Jenn, Evan, and Lauren on the ice!

We traversed slick, cold ice until we made it over to flag rock.

It definitely looks a bit different up close but it is still the island we all know and love at camp.  I cannot wait for the camp to flag rock to loon rock to camp swim once the ice is gone!  For now, though, all we can do is imagine the clean, crisp water and make the most of the snow.

Evan in mid-air, launching off of flag rock.

Today, while exploring the great expanse which is Birch Hill, I encountered a pretty cool snow drift which had formed around cabin 7.

The drift curved its way from the steps of cabin 8, around our new outdoor shower, up in front of 7 as pictured above, and continued to wind its way along the boy’s side of camp.  Unfortunately most of our campers and staff never get to experience Birch Hill in the winter but it is stuff like this that is really interesting and cool to find!

Today, January 5th, 2010, marks my first post of the new decade.  This will be the 18th season of Camp Birch Hill as we all know and love it and we could not be more pumped!

Zeus (my 11 year old Yellow Labrador Retriever sidekick) and I trudged around in the snow today clearing some roofs and decks from their winter loads.  I snapped some pictures as the snow began to fall again and cancel out my shoveling.  The theme today is our peaceful pond and swinging chair.

The pond and swinging chair with the BBall court and La Casa in the background.

The chair was so serene today buried in snow so Zeus felt the need to disrupt the scene.

FYI, he managed to locate and uncover a tennis ball which was frozen under two feet of snow; that is what he has between his paws in the above picture.  I hope that everyone is enjoying the winter as much as we are up here at camp!  Keep checking back for more pictures.

As the year comes to a close I decided I will be trying to post a daily picture from around camp.  The theme of today’s picture is “The North Pole,” or, alternatively, “Why is the weather in NH 60 degrees one day and 11 degrees with -5 wind chill the next?”

I ventured through last night’s fresh snow to snag some shots of our waterfront, below:

Freezing cold...literally

As you may be able to see, the water has come up about ten feet since the new dam was completed in August.  You can see better with Flag Rock as a point of reference:

Iceberg, straight ahead!

Flag Rock is an island again!  Seeing the water back to its former levels makes us at camp incredibly happy.  We definitely look forward to a summer of fun on the full lake again, which has been down since 2006.

Check back frequently for more camp pictures.  Want to have one of your pictures featured one day?  Send me shots of camp, campers, or Birch Hilly things with a short caption to summer@campbirchhill.com and I will post it!

Last week I successfully completed the WFR course through SOLO being held in Vermont.  Beyond what I previously wrote, we spent a lot of time figuring out ways to transport immobile patients out of the woods.  The culmination of these lessons was a mock nighttime rescue of multiple injured parties.

On Friday night we received an urgent call that there were reports of a group of men and women who had fallen off of the high ropes course and were in need of rescue.  As a group of 22 rescuers we donned our gear and trudged out into the woods.  Upon encountering the group we split up into teams, attended to each injured person’s life threatening wounds, and then worked on evacuating them to civilization.  It was great to put into use everything we had learned in the past week in the closest thing to a real life situation we had seen thus far.

At first we were dealing with only two patients but our instructors threw us what turned out to be a massive curve ball when a member of our team tripped, fell, and “broke his arm.”  The new patient really played up the part, insisting that it was not part of the exercise and we had to get him to the hospital immediately.  We took the turn of events in stride, however, and within about 40 minutes we had all of the patients back to the comfort of the heated main hall and effectively “rescued.”

This final test was amazingly fun and the course as a whole was totally worthwhile.  It will help me keep groups I am leading in the woods safe and healthy and, if the situation arises, have the ability to deal with more serious wounds, animal bites and stings, and illnesses.  Many thanks to the instructors from SOLO and staff at the Hulbert Outdoor Center.

The wilderness is defined as “a wild and uncultivated region, as of forest or desert, uninhabited or inhabited only by wild animals.”  Unless you consider our campers and staff wild animals, this would not really fit the description of Camp Birch Hill.  The skills I am learning in this course, however, extend to all locales far and near, and will be invaluable at camp.  The main idea behind all of the techniques we are learning is the stabilization of the patient for transfer to medical professionals.  While I will most likely never encounter 99% of the situations I have learned this week, it has been a fun and enriching experience nonetheless.

The key to staying healthy the back country, at camp, or anywhere really is prevention of ailments.  The most important theme of the week has been the maintenance of hydration in all cases.  Staying hydrated will allow our bodies to fend off many types and varieties of sicknesses so that we will not have to deal with them to begin with.  Beyond hydration, common sense takes care of many other factors.  That being said, there is still the chance of slips and falls, unexpected weather, falling branches, and many other possible hazards we may not see coming.

Some of the highlights of the class have been our occasions to feign illnesses so our classmates can put to practice what we have learned indoors.  Braving subzero temperatures I have had to lay on the snow pretending to be unconscious until my rescuers figured out what to do in that particular instance.  Sometimes it involved hiding fake bruises on my arms, legs, or stomach while other cases required the dousing of fake blood.  Today I laid prostrate on the crusty ice and snow and had to give the impression to my rescuer that I was suffering from heat stroke in the desert.  This could not have been further from the truth in reality, where I was on the verge of hypothermia.

All in all, if I am now confronted with a camper reporting any type of bodily issue I am confident that I will know what to do and how to assess what is going on.  On another note, today we covered how to assist in back country childbirth, something I know for sure I will not encounter at camp this or any summer!

It only took us five months but we finally have updated our online photo album. Check out all of the pictures from summer 2009 on our “photo gallery” page on the website!