Camp Echo Lake – Senior Village Life: Week 5 Recap
The Senior Village staff and campers were all excited for this summer’s third Special Day, as we revisited the very popular Harry Potter theme. At breakfast campers, were “sorted” into their houses: Badgersnout, Dovefeather, Hammertooh, Lionsmane, Geckotounge, or Foxtail. After the sorting ceremony, an intense Quidditch tournament kicked off, and lasted for three hours. After a number of very close games, and lots of spectacular team spirit, the Foxtail house came out on top, winning the overall tournament.
The afternoon was spent completing a rotation of various challenges by house, culminating in a Horcrux Hunt. House points were totaled for the morning and afternoon. The teams then started the Horcrux Hunt in their ranked order after the day’s challenges. House points started at zero in the beginning of the hunt. Each house accumulated points by finding items (worth varying point totals) that were hidden all over Senior Village.
Teams were able to send out seven campers at a time in search of the Horcruxes. After the hunt wrapped up, and the points were totaled, the blue team of Hammertooth took the first place prize for the day!
Last Friday, all of camp experienced the wild and fun (but exhausting) Apache Relay. The Senior Village campers participated in a variety of events including: skipping around the baseball field, completing a lake swim, making a bed and setting up a tent. The campers all had a great time during the extremely competitive event.
Iroquois was in the lead for the majority of the race by about three or four minutes, but Mohawk vaulted into the lead as their exquisite fire-making skills created a flame that burned through a rope in mere seconds. Mohawk emerged victorious on both Main Camp and Senior Village in the Apache Relay, which put them back into the overall competition, setting up a very tight race going into the Sachem games.
All of camp was very excited for the annual Carnival, which was held on Main Camp this past Sunday. The Upper Village campers ran the marriage booth and the dunk tank, while the Lower Village campers hosted games such as Baggo and Hoop Toss. Campers had time to play games at various booths, take a hayride, play on the inflatables and enjoy the “delicacies” of Carnival: popcorn, snow cones, cotton candy, curly fries, nachos, burgers, hot dogs, and more!
Both Lower Village and Upper Village campers had the chance to take part in Camp Echo Lake’s first-ever sailing overnight this week – The Sike – which featured sailing and hiking. Campers had the chance to sail on Lake George, take a beautiful hike, camp at Rodger’s Rock and hike and sail again the next day before returning to camp.
Senior Village campers had the opportunity to participate in Echo Lake’s version of the Ryder Cup over the course of two days this past week. After two beautiful days on the golf course, the USA team took the win 9-2 over Europe.
On Monday night, a number of counselors took to the stage to showcase their various talents, which included: singing, dancing, wrestling, playing instruments and performing a dramatic monologue. This year’s wide variety of acts kept the audience engaged and entertained. We would like to give a special “shout-out” to all of the Senior Village staff members who showcased their various talents. They delivered some spectacular singing, dancing and instrumental performances!
This past week, the Upper Village campers had the opportunity to go on their second “Sign-Out” of the summer, where they enjoy a relaxing night of popcorn, candy, and air conditioning at the movies. This week’s movie options were Guardians of the Galaxy, Planes: Fire and Rescue or Hercules. All of the campers ended up choosing either Guardians or Planes, and both had an awesome time! Not only were both of the movies great, but the campers did an awesome job representing Echo Lake while being off camp!
This past week, the Swimathon and Marathon to benefit Project Morry took place at Echo Lake. For the Marathon, Senior Villagers did a “color run,” running as many laps as they could around Senior Village while being squirted with colored water. The day was very warm and sunny, so being sprayed with cool water felt great!
Later in the afternoon, the campers swam as many laps in the pool as they could for Swimathon. With cheers from the LITs and their counselors to support them, the Senior Village campers completed many, many laps and made us all very proud! We are all glad to have these opportunities to help Morry’s Camp.
Coming up this week, we have many exciting events at camp, including our final trip day to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown and Water Safari (NY’s largest water park), “Secret Hideaway” – an event for the staff (hosted by the Upper Villagers) to benefit Morry’s Camp, as well as Sachem Games and the start of Tribal Sing practice. In addition to all of this, we are extremely excited to welcome back our 4n4 campers and staff as they return to Echo Lake tomorrow night from their four week tour of the West!
