Background

In the early 80's the staff built 2 challenge courses at camp long before they became popular) one low and one medium-high.  They were enjoyed by campers for years.  Then, later in the decade the insurance company at the time would not insure our higher course due to several large judgments they were involved with at other camps. Although we never had an accident on ours,  we had to dismantle the higher one, leaving only the low course.  In order to fill the programming gap left by the absence of this course, we threw our energy into the environmental program, and our beautiful center.  With a switch in insurance companies in the mid-nineties, we discovered that our new company was in favor of challenge courses if built and maintained by professionals.  In 1999 we decided to look for a company to help us design , build and maintain a full scale challenge program consisting of a low course, a high course and a climbing wall.  After reviewing the literature of many companies, we pared them down to 3 choices.  After inviting each to camp presenting their proposals we chose "Inner Quest" a company with an excellent reputation from Northern Virginia.  Not having the funds to do everything we wanted, it was decided to work in three steps.  The first two involved an overhaul of our low ropes course, the construction of the tower and the addition of the tower zip line. These two pieces were done and have been a super addition to the program!   The third piece was to be the high course.  The staff came to the Alumni meeting in February of 2004 and asked if the Association might head a campaign to ask for the funds we need to complete this third piece, and they were both excited and willing to support the project.   

Project

We asked Alumni, family, campers and friends of camp to donate toward this project so we could have it constructed and in use by the summer of 2004.  Although we had to wait a year, the alumni were able collect a majority of the needed funds ( $17,000.00)  and the course was built in the spring of 2005 and used for the summer to the delight of all campers who got to experience the course.