Camp Geiger - Tues. June 21

Camp Geiger wouldn't be Camp Geiger without a rainstorm. And last night, we got one! Hopefully, it was our one big storm for the trip. While it ultimately turned out to much ado about not a whole lot, on the radar, the storm looked pretty ugly when it was 20-30 miles out. About 8:20 p.m. we started battening down the hatches in camp and even took the tops off the dining flies. By 9:15 p.m. we were on the move evacuating our campsite (Arapaho is the highest point on the Geiger Reservation) for the safety (and relative comfort) of the training center where many of the staff members live. In true Camp Geiger fashion, the counselors were awesome and pulled an old big screen TV and DVD player out for the boys to watch a movie. The older boys did an outstanding job helping shepherd the younger scouts through the rain and by 11:38 p.m. we were back in our tents and by 11:45 p.m. all sleeping soundly.

This morning brought dark, overcast skies and a lot of sleepy faces, but we were all thankful the weather wasn't worse than it was. In fact, it sounds like the storm at home was 20 times worse than ours. The day also brought a high temperature of 74 and yes, before you ask, THAT was worth missing a couple hours of beauty sleep.

It has been a great day so far. The boys are all firmly entrenched in their merit badges. The first year scouts went on their 5 mile hike this morning to satisfy that requirement for First Class and the adults were off doing two of the four service projects that Camp Geiger has assigned to us this year. In addition, many of the senior scouts headed out for C.O.P.E. - easily the most coveted of the activities here at camp. Mainly because it's only for the older boys and the younger ones can't wait to get there. That and the fact that at the end of the week, the boys in the program get a "I Survived C.O.P.E" T-shirt.

Depending on who you talk to, C.O.P.E. stands for either "Challenging Outdoor Physical Exertion" or "Challenging Outdoor Personal Experiences." Either way, C.O.P.E. is a national program that started here at Camp Geiger that puts teams of boys through rigorous physical and mental tests that challenge their abilities to think, plan and work together to achieve given tasks.

For the most part, everything in the program revolves around the giant C.O.P.E. tower that sits just inside the entrance to camp.

The top platform is about 65 feet off the ground and a number of activities emanate from that height. But there are also a bunch of activities on the ground and on apparatus built about 10-15 feet off the ground.

This morning, our boys tackled a number of cool challenges starting with a 20-foot cargo net they had to climb up and over. Each boy had their own style, but each one conquered any fear they had and made it over.

Next, they were off to a team building exercise that tested their sense of logic and teamwork. To the naked eye, it's a series of seven stumps with four planks. But as the counselors set it up for the dozen boys tasked with the challenge - "you are a band of elves being chased by an army of giants over a sea of lava. There are five chasms but only four boards and they don't all match the spaces they have to traverse so you'll have to cross on them and then pick them up and move them - all without falling. You all have to be up on the boards at once and you have to figure out how to move the boards and yourselves from one side to the other. None of you can exit the other side until you reach the final stump and you must bring the boards with you - less the giants chase you!"

The boys had a blast figuring this out and when they fell, the counselors were nice enough to let them jump back up - but with an applied disability. Matt B. fell and "lost a leg" and had to hop his way around. Robby had his feet tied together. Someone else had to cross with their eyes shut. The boys were forced to rely on one another and in the process, solved their challenge and managed to have a whole lot of fun.

The next activity was getting the team past a flat wall about 12 feet tall. For 20 minutes, the boys made pyramids, jumped up, stood on each other's shoulders and tried and tried to figure out how to get past the wall. Finally, someone just said, "dude, I'm going around it." Which, as it turned out, was a perfectly acceptable solution. The boys protested, but all the counselor had to say was, "hey, I never said you had to over." Sometimes at camp, as in real life, the best solution is the simplest one and the one sitting right in front of you. It's also a valuable lesson on what happens when you simply "assume."

The rest of the week will bring rappelling, ziplining 500 yards about 50 feet off the ground and many other "tests." The boys are having a blast and can't believe that it's already Tuesday.

Neither can we.