Mount Washington is about two hours from camp. Every year, our First Year Seniors hike this bad boy.

It's not easy. Plenty of people drive to the top instead (you've probably seen the bumper stickers). But it's the tallest mountain in the Northeast, and it's right up the road. So we hike it.

What Stuck

This summer we sat down with some former campers who are on staff now, and asked about their favorite camp memories.

If you were trying to predict what these would be ahead of time, you’d probably guess a Color War breakout or a Hollowpalooza or Big Weekend. Sure, those came up, and they matter a ton.

But Mount Washington came up over and over, before anyone ever asked about it. And in their version of the story, it wasn’t this perfect trip or anything. In fact, their retellings usually had something a little bit wrong.

One Evergreen alum, eleven summers in and now on staff, went straight to her Juniper trip. Close to the top. People were complaining some (ok, maybe a lot). Mostly about the hail which honestly, anyone would complain about.

"It wasn't fun in the moment. But it made for a good story, and it was really cool to still do it even in those conditions."

They made it to the summit. Then, just to make sure it was clear: "It was literally hailing."

A Kenwood alum told us about his trip at 13. His group wasn’t looking forward to it. Mostly because they’d heard it was tough, and sure, it’s a lot of walking uphill.

They were staying on the mountain in lean-tos. After the first night, they marched over to the counselors' lean-tos, stomping and chanting that they did not want to climb any further.

The next day severe weather hit the top and the trip got called. They hiked down celebrating, convinced their protest did it.

(For the record, weather calls belong to camp. The kids celebrated anyway.)

They didn’t make it to the top. But they weathered the weather conditions.

There's a name for this. Type two fun. Kinda not-so-amazing while it's happening, great once it's over. It's a lot of what kids actually keep.

Where the Confidence Comes From

Camp websites, ours included, are full of sunny photos. Most days look like that.

But the stories these alums told us were about the days that didn’t go to plan. My guess is when you make your own list of core memories, it’s remarkably similar.

Confidence usually gets built in those imperfect parts. There are plenty of real challenges at camp. Nobody needs to make up fake ones. Kids get a lot of chances to work things out when they aren’t going perfectly.

It might not feel like it in the moment, but a kid who gets to the summit in the hail knows she can keep going when it gets uncomfortable. She just did it, with her best friends (which makes everything better).

Some kids even sign up to hike all three senior summers. In Evergreen you get your name on a plaque and the 3-peat shirt.

They sign up to do it again, hail and all. All on purpose. Funny how that works.

You got this,

Jack

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