Week 8: Pathfinders (juniors again), with co-counselors tonks and clover

It was such a relief finding out that I had a co who I could actually stand!! I was put in alder valley again, which is a bummer because It was mozzie ridden after a bit of rain.

This week went incredibly fast, and It was very much out of the loop with normal camp schedule. We were originally supposed to be going on a hiking trip to mount adams – which is in the south of Washington state, but we figured that dragging 13 girls aged 9-11 might have been a bit much. So, after doing a first day of tri-dock and the challenge course, we packed for an overnight at the local national park, by the tolt river, a shallow river with large stones – and great for swimming at night, as we worked out later. I was carrying 16 peoples dinner – including potatoes, and a tent, so my pack was the heaviest I have ever carried, but tonks and clovers’ were too, so I didn’t complain. We picked blackberries on the way, which was pretty neat. We just cooked dinner, and played some games on the oval and let them play in the river, until we put the kids to bed.

Then tonks had this great idea of leaving the girls, who were squished into 3 tents – 13 of them (and the counsellors were pretty squished – clover and tonks and I in a two man tent,) and I possibly got the worst nights sleep I ever have. We went down to the river and, how very unamylike, skinny dipped!! It was awesome though, because the current was very minimal and we just sat there on the stones like axolotls and talked. Lucky we got out when we did though, because someone walked over the suspsension bridge. We were also scared that the kids might get scared and wake up, and find us swimming naked in the river, and steal our clothes, just like on The Parent Trap movie. We came back to the girls cracking up, because none of us had brought towels and we were using a dirty dish cloth, and we had to sleep head to foot to fit us in. it also was so squished in the girls tents that they were hot and we took the flies off, only to put them back on when it started pouring down in the middle of the night.

We woke up and knew we couldn’t walk back in this weather, so while we made egg mcmuffins in hobo pie irons, clover walked all the way back to camp in the rain and picked us up with the van. While we were waiting for her, thegirls decided to give me a ‘makeover ‘ and smoosh blackberries all over me. I felt like I had leprosy or something afterwards!!!

The next day the kids were exhausted so all we did was do canoeing (and they picked me up and pucshed me in the lake), and watch the Princess Diaries, and I had my only shower of the week.

The next day we packed up our bags again, and drove up to snoqalmie forest national park. The road was blocked so we went to rattlesnake lake for lunch. The kids swam, ate a lot, smooshed berries over our faces again, and we all got in a tree which was randomly placed in a lake.

Then we finally got to our hiking spot and started the ascent – which was pretty hard going – but this time we had a n extra tent – clover was carrying four of them!! We went up pretty high - up through the clouds.

We found the ‘camping’ spot at lake talapus, which turned out to have space for one tent, so clover and I went scouting ahead through ‘amazon jungle’ – that’s literally what it looked like. We were wondering how the kids would be able to get through, without going head over heels through the devils club and mud. But they did and we found a pretty good camping spot. I thought It was funny when the kids asked me where the restroom was. I said “the world is your toilet.” Later on, tonks and clover gave ademo on how to do Number 2’s in the woods – using our chocolate pudding dessert leftovers as an example of the u-know-what.

We had to hoist our clothes, rubbish and mess kits in a tree – a technique called ‘bear baging.” That was one of the strangest American camping concepts I have ever learnt – the act of hanging your breakfast ina tree away from bears.

We had a fantastic dinner though- powdered bean soup – but a bit of gas trap in a tent. But that was our only form of heating – the tent was freezing because it was three of us in a fiver man tent (the only one left). Tonks and I ended up sharing the same pillow and spooning because we were so cold!!

And to top it off, we left the kids again and attempted to skinny dip in the lake, but it was so cold that we just sat there naked on a log, looking out at the mountains, and the giant landslide across the lake. Tonks and I left clover with the kids and sat on a rock talking for an hour. It was amazing. It looked like we were camping in the mouth of a volcano. The forest also looked exactly out of hell from ‘tomorrow when the war began’. Just how I pictured it.

In the morning, clover and I woke up and opened the tent to find us camping on the ends of theearth – the lake was entirely covered in mist and you couldn’t see more than a few metres ahead. Tonks strolled by in her bikini aftera refreshing early morning swim, which we found pretty funny, ebcasue we had been so cold that night, and one kid had even come up to our tent saying “I have hypoteherimia” – but she was wearing a mini skirt and no sweatshirt or shoes for god sakes. The kids hadn’t gone to bed until aftger midnight because they were scared of the bears, so we were all pretty tired.

The fog started to clear, slowly revealing the lake. We brought our sleeping bags and mats down to the lake bank and propped ourselves up there to watch the mist dissolve. Another amaxing moment, that makes me realise hwat a different world I am in.

We left at 11am and the walk back was MUCH easier as it was all down hill and we had no food. The kids got back and we did the tri-dock , to their distress, and went to closing campfire, led by the pirate lifeguards, who came in to the campfire on a row boat, from the lake, with a pirate flag, which was amazing.

The kids this time were pretty good, apart from a few disrespectful ones, saying to me “come dog” in the middle of the night. I lost my patience with them by then and told them to shut up. They all mimicked my accent, especially “I reckon” and kept saying “mummy, I lost my jumper, did you know the fox farted in the bird.” I think I am getting a bit of an American accent though, which is scary!!!

OHH!! and ;hawk was fired!! she and turk were caught underage drinking on camp property!! its ok for hawk, who is american, but turk is turkish and policy is that here visa is terminated and she has to be out of the country in 24 hours!!! I knew she was very unhappy this week with co-counselor secret (hawk im talking baout), and i knew she wanted out, but out with a bang she went.