The campers at Adirondack are a talented bunch, everyday accomplishing feats great and small and never failing to impress us on staff. So, fittingly, at the end of each session we gather in front of the stage to recognize our ever-impressive campers. Over 150 awards were presented on stage, campers receiving certificates, ribbons, dog tags, and emblems to take home as mementos of their achievements. Read on for a brief run-down of some of the highlights of the night.

Tomorrow we must bid farewell to the wonderful campers that have graced the peninsula these past four, six and even eight weeks. The majority of these campers will be hopping on one of two buses; a rough schedule is below for all those parents who will be awaiting their child down south.

If you are picking your kids up at camp please arrive between 9 and 11am.

Please note that the following times are subject to some variation. The times can vary as much as thirty minutes in either direction.

Sunday morning staff and campers woke up early, ate breakfast and were ready to swim a 1.8 mile marathon. The Big Triangle is starts at Canoe Dock, goes to Anthony’s Nose, then Glenburnie, and back to Canoe Dock.

This year the Swim Staff designed a Swimming Quest to give all of the swimmers a chance to challenge themselves at their level. We had one camper, Zan C. finish all 5 of the Swimming Quests.

All of the swimmers did an incredible job and we would like to congratulate all of them for their hard work!

Read on for a complete list of swimmers and times for the Big Triangle and Peninsula Swim.

No one can believe that week six is coming to an end and so few days are left. However, we have many exciting events planned for the end of camp, with much to look forward to.

We were given beautiful weather this past week with a few showers to break the heat.

Here are some activity spotlights:

• Creative Arts made jewelry this week, using many different materials. They made some really cool leather and pearl bracelets, earrings, and silver ball chain bracelets. They also did some watercolor and drawings with the guest artist Sal.

• Swimming celebrated the end of the week with a Pirate Day. All of the swim classes were held in Junior Cove. They had a treasure hunt, seahorse race, and an All Hands on Deck game. The counselors dressed up in Pirate gear and spoke in a fun pirate dialect.

• Culinary Fun made cheese quesadillas today while also learning about different kinds of herbs. Yesterday they made cool monkey cupcakes decorating them and in my opinion looking better than the cover of the magazine!

Yesterday the junior/intermediate girls line roasted marshmallows, sang along to music, and swam in Junior Cove. The young boy campers played "Yard Sale", running up the ball field to Chris the line head with whatever he asked for. The pictures posted from this are priceless! The senior cabins had cabin night making brownies, tubing, bobbing, making s’mores, and having dance parties.

This weekend we flipped our normal Saturday and Sunday schedules. This means that we had a Line-up Sign-up Saturday morning with Blue-White in the afternoon. There were many activities open for the kids to do including: SUP, advanced sunbathing, tennis, waterskiing, friendship bracelets, soccer, and basketball. Campers had a fun time relaxing after a busy week of activities, as well as exploring new activities that they might not have had in their previous schedule.

In the afternoon, we had an all camp Capture the Flag Blue-White event. It was one of the most exciting Capture the Flag games ever, everyone taking the plaque seriously with a focused goal…to take custody of or even simply touch the flags! Our land was split in half, with the senior Blue-White captains flipping for which half they prefer. Blue Team was trying to get the flag at senior, while the White Team trudged up the hill to Awiskini. There are many points involved including: captures, touching/moving the flags, jail breaks, and the biggie of getting the flag to your side of the rope. These points make the game immensely exciting, as it is very hard to know who won, even after it was over. Today we found out just how close it was one team had 8,320 points and one team had 8,280 points. This means that it was only 40 points apart, so if one team had only ONE more jailbreak they could have prevailed. HOW White!

Delighted by beautiful weather, we are finishing up a great first week of activities.
Some of the excitement includes:

• We have had two fun themed lunches: crazy hair day and pajama lunch.
• Blue-White Windsurfing and Fishing are happening today. Windsurfing has had a series of races and events over the past few days. Blue-White fishers woke up early this morning for an all day fishing marathon, striving to catch more “inches” then the opposing team.
• An all-star soccer team has been practicing, getting ready to travel to a neighboring camp, Forrest Lake, for a competitive soccer game. First session we dominated after a close game!
• We have two exciting guest artists that arrived to help out this session. One of our counselor, Nora’s parents joined us, bringing their Hollywood film, dance, and acting skills to share with the campers. Rachel has led Eagle-i, which teamed up with Drama to create a real Hollywood production, "Acting for Film". Carl has been teaching a "Dance for Athletes" class as well as a Thriller workshop, teaching both campers and counselors the famous Thriller dance that will be used in a special video next week.

HOW!! Second session is off to a rip-roaring start for Wilderness Trips. We've reached the pinnacles of four firetowers, conquered two 46ers, explored some of the mountains around our very own Lake George, gone vertical in Keene Valley, and made waves with canoes and kayaks on ponds and rivers. That means that more than FIFTY campers have ventured into the wilderness over the course of only three days! Our first really adverse weather of the summer hit this week when a number of us braved what felt like a monsoon on Wednesday night—and we all ended up all right, although perhaps somewhat damp. One highlight for eight hikers was summitting Wright Mountain in the heart of the Adirondack 46ers and enjoying a fantastic view of the 6 million acre park as well as another unlikely view: the wreckage of a 1962 plane crash on the summit. We can't wait to get even more campers out on wilderness excursions over the next few weeks of camp!

A new session means new captains for the Blue/White teams. The campers separated by team after lunch to elect captains to lead their teams through the final leg of Blue-White competition. Campers vote for captains who they believe to be spirited enough to inspire their team, shrewd enough to develop winning strategies, and organized enough to manage the many responsibilities of a team captain. By popular opinion, these people are:

Our 193 campers are settled, and the daily routine is already in full swing. With the camper laundry going out this morning, the kids could not believe that they only have three days of laundry, when it feels like they have been here for a week! Everyone is VERY excited for this session, especially after an extremely spirited Blue-White Dodge Ball event last night.

Here are a few friendly reminders to help us ensure the session runs as smoothly as possible:

• Getting in touch with your camper:
• Our address is P.O. Box 97, Putnam Station, NY 12861; however, if you are sending a package, replace “P.O. Box 97” with “302 Warrick Road.”
• Due to its alluring effect on all of the nature’s creatures, food is not allowed in our open air cabins. Therefore, please do not send any food to your camper; we will be obliged to confiscate it.
• You may email your child by emailing them at campers@adirondackcamp.com. Please put the camper’s name and cabin (if known) in the subject line. We generally print all the emails every morning.
• We all want to have the children to have the best possible experience at camp this summer, and believe it or not we have found that campers acclimate to camp better when phone calls are minimized. However, due to the distance from home, we understandably make exceptions for international campers. If you would like to schedule a phone call with one of your child's counselors, feel free to call (518) 547-8261 and we will do our best to arrange one. Even in this age of technology, nothing beats a good old fashioned letter in the mail!

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