Last week, I had the pleasure of being a camp counselor at Foothill Horizons Outdoor School.  I attended 6th grade camp back in 2018 and it was a great experience for me. At the time, my camp counselor was a senior here at Enochs; she made me and my classmates experience one to remember and I was so happy to be able to do the same thing for 6th graders now that I am a senior. 

The campus was just as I remembered: dorms with bunk beds, a place for everyone to sit around the campfire and sing songs together, and a large dining hall at the top of a hill.  And as for the classrooms, they are everywhere you look…only they’re essentially non-existent. 

The students were led on hikes all throughout the surrounding area to learn about the environment, the animals that inhabit the foothills, the Me-Wuk tribe that inhabits the land to this day, and played games together; all whilst creating memories together that will never be forgotten.  We even took a field trip 165 feet in the ground to the Moaning Caverns, climbing step by step down a seemingly never-ending spiral staircase (it was almost as scary this time as it was in 6th grade) but I still made sure to take care of the 6th graders who were genuinely frightened. That same day we visited the Calaveras Big trees, taking a peaceful walk in the park as the trees towered over us. During our time at camp we also took a hike in the woods through the pitch black night.  Seems scary, right? Well, it was actually their favorite activity.  The stars were so so bright, something that can’t be seen from most of our Modesto homes. 

During our “Dorm Olympics” night they even got the chance to put me in a costume as a reward for all of the games we succeeded in (the bright blue wig was the best part of my outfit!). Over the week my campers in the squirrel dorm really grew up. They learned a lot; a lot about the environment, about being independent and responsible, a lot about themselves and each other, and I even watched them become closer friends as the week went on. Our dorm Naturalist Karla was a key part to their success. I also had the chance to talk to my Naturalist from 6th grade, Ashley, who is now one of the Foothill Horizons chefs.  I was proud to be the Squirrel dorm counselor for the week and I hope that as they get older the girls will see me as a positive role model just as I have always remembered my counselor. Counseling at Foothill Horizons really was such a full circle experience, and I thoroughly enjoyed checking it off of my senior year bucket list.