What Do Camp Directors Do in the Fall?

Hey Everyone! It’s your favorite program director, Josh, making my blogging debut.
So, what have I been up to since camp has ended? Well, besides a variety of seasonal shutdown and office work, I’ve been using my time to leave Chingachgook and do some great alumni networking all over the Northeastern United States!

As soon as camp ended, I packed my overnight bag for a weekend in the Adirondacks. I had been invited by an alum to participate in a Labor Day Weekend sailing regatta. Our racing vessel: an AMF Sunfish, just like we use here at camp. Sitting on a beam reach, rounding a mark, on a sunfish, it was just like being in our awesome sailing skill class at Chingachgook.
Next up was a trip to New York City. Arriving in Brooklyn, I met a camp alumnus who had sorted out a bike for me to borrow. The two of us spent the afternoon biking nearly 20 miles! We biked all the way to Coney Island to ride the Cyclone and Wonderwheel.
If you didn’t know, after almost 50 years as a national landmark, Coney Island’s amusement park closed down the following Sunday. I made it out there just in time, in the park’s final days!
That weekend I headed out to Boston for another round of alumni networking, meeting up with several alums now residing in the greater Boston area. We all had a fun weekend of talking about camp (all had been Chingachgook directors in the past!) and seeing some sights in the city. Did You Know: you can sail on a river? The Charles River offers a great community sailing program that I’ve taken advantage of. Any Chingachgook campers living in the Boston area who learned how to sail at camp this summer might want to check it out: Community Boating

The following week, Aaron and I took a trip to Philadelphia that you may have read about in an earlier blog entry. Although I spent part of my childhood growing up in Philly, I was surprised to learn that Aaron had never been. I took to showing him some of the historical sites that make the city famous; including Independence Hall, the Liberty Bell, the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, and the Articles of Confederation. Afterwards, I knew I’d be doing Aaron-the-baseball-fall an injustice if I didn’t take him to a Phillies game. The Phillies won, and it was free hat day to boot!
The following day we attended a conference for YMCA camp directors at the South Mountain YMCA and got to hang out with a bunch of camp-nerds just like ourselves.

Last weekend I departed Chingachgook for the looong drive to Baxter State Park in Maine. The park is home to Maine’s tallest peak, Katahdin. The great thing about all of this alumni networking is that I’d convinced some alums to re-join me on my ascent of the mountain, as an exploratory trip for Chingachgook's Adventure Program. It was a long day of hiking, but we were rewarded with a great sense of accomplishment as we reached the sign marking the summit. The clouds even broke on the way down and we were treated to a beautiful view of Maine.

It’s nice to know so many campers, CIT’s, and staff are still enthusiastically glowing from their camp experience. Just this weekend in Saratoga, I ran into over 25 alums who stopped me to say hi and talk about camp. As always, we invite you and your families to visit. Remember, there’s a reunion on October 5th. It’s a great chance to hike Buck Mountain! See the top of this page for details.