First Day of Activities in 2021

Overcast skies with a light rain made for a cool, crisp morning at Alpine. Generally speaking, rain does not mesh with being outdoors, but rain at Alpine typically adds a fun twist to each activity. Though you could definitely find more organized football on college campuses in the fall, I’ve found the entertainment value of our team sports field when it’s a bit soggy to rival the SEC on CBS. I spent a chunk of the morning watching the boys slide around, make leaping catches, and build their team work skills playing flag football. Thankfully, Ms. Gail had the boys fueled up with her famous French Toast and Bacon this morning, so they were ready to tackle the day.

My name is Wayne Ingram, and I am one of the Associate Directors here at Alpine. I am from Birmingham, AL and grew up camping at Alpine. After a few summers on staff in college, I spent time doing Corporate Tax Accounting with Ernst & Young in Birmingham as a CPA. I recently accepted this position to return to camp full time, and will be chiming in on the blog periodically.

At the bouldering barn today, campers pushed themselves to learn new climbing patterns on our rock walls. The barn has two roll up garage doors and thick foam mattresses, which line the length of the floor. There are dozens of rock holds all over the walls, and counselors interact the boys through several different paths across. It’s a place where boys have the ultimate freedom to try, and fail, without the fear of hitting the ground too hard. In just a few short moments, I got to see a boy make it up a level 3 path with the help of one of our counselors, while another counselor explained to his cabin mate how to get up a level 1 path.

In front of our dining hall, counselors were teaching the boys how to play Can Jam—- a popular game with rules similar to corn hole. Players take turns throwing a Frisbee back and forth to a large plastic can with a slot in the center and an open top. Players get points for hitting the can, making it in the slot, or landing it in the top. They also have a teammate on the other end who can redirect the disc into the can to earn points as well. No doubt it will end up on some Christmas lists this December.

For lunch, we enjoyed chicken tenders, mashed potatoes, butter beans, salad, and rolls: an Alpine staple. Campers can hardly contain their excitement from the dining hall ramp when our work crew (otherwise known as Kitchen Boys or KBs) sets it on the table alongside Alpine’s special chicken sauce, Shazam. Brought to us by our longtime cook, Ms. Crow; Shazam falls somewhere between Zaxby’s sauce and Cane’s in terms of flavor. For dessert, we got to enjoy rainbow sherbert.

Camp continued a full day of activities with an afternoon that saw arrows and BBs shot, fish caught, and horses taken for a ride. The morning showers moved off to the east, and the sun broke through the clouds given us ideal weather. In between activity periods, campers zoomed around camp, eager to spend every minute they could at their activities. One of my favorite parts of Junior Camp is that almost everything is done at “full speed.”

The dinner bell rang at 6:30 and we headed back to the dining hall for spaghetti and garlic bread with salad and cinnamon cake for dessert. Ms. Gail always makes her best meals early in camp. One camper even asked if he could go back to the kitchen and thank her himself. Afterwards, we headed down to the Team Sports Field for some Glee Club before starting night activity.

Hunter 1’s played Jedi Ball, which is similar to dodgeball, but with a pool noodle wielding Jedi who has the power to bring their teammates back into the game. Meanwhile, Hunter 2’s got on their best camouflage to play Canyon Spotlight. S’mores were on the schedule for the Hunter 3’s, while our Trapper age group played some Xtreme 4 Square on the tennis courts. Scouts had their turn at Capture the Flag to round out the night.

Each evening, the counselors lead their cabins in a devotion time where they debrief the day and share a story from the Bible. Last night, I heard about one devotinal where a boy asked, “Are God and Jesus good friends?” The counselor took a second to think about it before replying, “Yeah, they’re super close. So close that they’re actually the same person.”

We will be back with more updates soon!

Thanks for reading,

Wayne