Back to Camp

I finished off the season with one last magical powder day at Kirkwood, with a group of six wonderful friends, a posse that despite its size never grew unwieldy or sluggish.

And now after a lightning fast winter, I'm settled back in at SSC, with a new cabin and a new title and, oddly, a new sense of detachment. Because this time around I have a life in town, not to mention a set schedule of forty evening hours a week, I haven't and probably won't wholeheartedly embrace the scene that is camp. It's a little bittersweet that I'll never again be a new arrival wide-eyed with wonder (like Eric, who I suspect is in heaven), but instead I can build on friendships I made last season, get to better know the full time staffers, and make some attempt to do my job well (which doesn't come as naturally to me as food service, but what doesn't kill you, etcetera).

Of course the best aspect of camp remains the same: infinite opportunity for outdoor play. The mountains and the waterfront beckon. The trails shook themselves free of snow very early this year, and Rebecca and I have been on a couple of extremely satisfying bikes rides (made all the better by several months of abstinence). On one of those days I had the quintessentially Californian experience of mountain biking and skiing in the same day. And this sunshine doesn't look like it's going anywhere.