What an amazing day here atCampTimberlake! As the sun began to burn off the fog that lies in the mountains every morning, the morning bugle woke sleepy-eyed campers from their dreams. The smell of pancakes and bacon roused campers awake and brought them down to the Tucker Inn to start the morning off with breakfast and the morning yell.

At the same time, another group of campers awoke in a very different scene. Will H., Mitchell G., Hardy D., Colby B., Grant B., Ryan C., Joe B. and Truitt B. all awoke this morning immersed in God’s creation. After a day hike to Catawba Falls and setting up camp, these campers woke up with the sunrise for a breakfast on the trail before hiking back to the van and joining their friends back at Camp Timberlake.

After morning chapel, campers rushed to their various cabins to clean up before the final cabin clean-up scores were taken for the overall cabin clean up contest. After putting the final touches on their cabins, campers made their way to first period to start their busy day of activities and last chances to earn bars in their favorite activities.

One of the best things about activities at Camp Timberlake is the ability for a camper to earn bars in their favorite activities. These bars allow the campers to grow in skill and accomplish goals along the way of earning their bronze, silver, or gold in the activities.  Since today was the final day before closing, this meant that campers were taking every spare second they had to complete bars. Let’s start out the bar recognition with Walker T. earning his Gold in Tennis, a true challenge even for the accomplished player. In team sports Hendrix M. received his bronze today. In soccer, both Matt J. and Andres E. received their bronze today, and Joey S. reached the highest award and received his gold bar today. Finishing up the awards of today are Andres and Gabriel E., Ian C., and Tom B., who all received their bronze in climbing today! In addition to the bars, Christian D. got his roll down in kayaking class.

Another awesome aspect of Camp Timberlake is the wilderness side of camp.  The Timberlake staff as well as the Wilderness Staff strives to get as many campers in the wilderness as possible. Today was filled with several of these wilderness trips! A canoeing and kayaking trip left this morning to go to the Tuckaseegee River.  The trip was a great success! No one flipped in the water and everyone had a great time. Another trip that went out today was to DuPont to ride some trails on mountain bikes. Eliiot B., Clark W., Parrish B., Josh C., Kennon S., and Brodie C. all took this opportunity to go mountain biking. The trip left this morning, rode several trails before and after lunch, and got back to camp for dinner. Last but not least, a few campers had the chance to soak up the sun on Lake James and water-ski as well.  All the campers had a blast, and enjoyed the gorgeous day on the lake just before the evening shower fell upon Black Mountain.

The evening shower was a much-needed relief from the heat of the day. The rain cleared up just in time for tonight’s Little Chief Ceremony and the perfect ending to a beautiful day here atCampTimberlake.