The Great Outdoors

Last weekend, we city-dwellers (practically all of us from Gracepoint in Berkeley) went out to the Sierras to “rough it”- as in, sleeping in tents or under the stars, no showers, wandering hikes, river-rafting, and lots of unhealthy but tantalizingly oily and savory food. We do this at least a couple of times a year..but there were a couple of firsts for this one:

– 1st time a couple of senior

brothers rafted out and camped on a tiny island, eating 2 river trout that Pastor Will caught.

– 1st time our group rafted miles down the Truckee River along with hundreds of other weekend revelers. Water fights, crashing into bridges, jumping between rafts, and purposely falling out of rafts ensued.

– 1st time we (or maybe just I) had kimchee chige as a camping meal. Hearty chunks of spam in a spicy, boiling stew of fermented cabbage? Now that is satisfying!

We camped at Granite Flat Compound, a beautiful site where we pitched our tents right next to the rushing river. We set up camp the first evening we got there then roasted marshmallows, told ghost stories, and ate pigged out as water flowed mellifluously in the background.

Those who were able to get up at 5 am the next day tried to lure in some fish for breakfast. Results: 8 fishers, none caught.

The lack of results did not matter in the end, because we went picnicking on the edge of Lake Tahoe for lunch. It was here that we saw one of our freshmen, Stephen Chee, repeatedly dunk Caleb, Pastor Will’s son, in the water. Of course, Stephen claims Caleb deserved it. We also saw some of the sophomore s throw some pretty tight spirals with the pigskin and skip rocks just as well (or even better) than some of the guys.

There’s Andrew hard at work pumping up one of 6 rafts manually. It took 5 of us about an hour to get all of them set up. Amazingly, they each fit 6 people and are dependable. That means further rafting trips are in the near horizon. Most of our students were saying that this was the most memorable part of the trip. Indeed it was, as many people not only got soaked, but even had phones, talkabouts, and wallets water-logged and rendered unusable. Other than that, it was 2 hours of fun in the water.

There are our intrepid sister staff on the Truckee River….actually it’s just us getting ready to raft again on Fuller Lake, where we ended our trip with more fishing, rafting, ultimate frisbee, and the sumptuous Korean meal mentioned above. It was definitely great to see all the students bond and have a great time. Special thanks to all the staff who made the trip possible. Until the next camping trip……