Wednesday, October 9th: Camp Day One
On Day One, most of the team does last-minute prep while three team members head to the airport to facilitate getting campers onto shuttles. Campers start arriving at 2PM, and camp officially begins at 6:30 with dinner, cabin initiations and opening ceremonies! This time was extra-special because, well, you’ll see.
TODAY IS THE BEST DAY BECAUSE TODAY IS THE DAY THE CAMPERS ARRIVE! WE ARE SO EXCITED FOR YOU ALL TO GET HERE. COME CAMP WITH US!
— A-Camp (@A_Camp2013) October 9, 2013
I. ARE THEY HERE YET?
Dani RDS, Stormtroopers Counselor & Contributing Editor: I’d never been to LAX before the first camp, so Terminal 6 only has the best, most exciting associations for me. Sitting there and waiting for little queer faces to show up and get this party started is the best anticipation/excitement feeling ever. Is this how kindergarten teachers feel?
Carmen, Holograms Counselor & Contributing Editor: I arrived in LAX on Wednesday, making me the last member of staff to get up the mountain and improving upon all of my prior records of being “fashionably late.” I loved meeting everyone at Terminal Six because y’all were so cute and excited!
Sophia: The Day the Campers Arrive is my favourite day, for sure, it’s such a high of emotion and -omg, what’s ahead, all of camp! I’m so glad to meet you- And then you sleep so, so well. It’s great.
Robin: The first day of camp is always super exciting and overwhelming!
Marni: We were anticipating rain, but learned on arrival that we were above the snow line and that the rain would HAHAHA actually be snow.
Cee: I assured Robin that there was no way we’d be getting snow this early and that the (100% chance of snow) forecast must be totally off.
Riese: For most of the morning, my conviction that it absolutely would not snow seemed accurate.
Riese: But then things took a turn, like that part in RENT when the music is twinkling and then someone goes “and it’s beginning to snowwww….”
Riese: By this point I was safe inside with Laneia, ready to greet the fuck out of these campers.
Liz C.: Brittani and I were finishing up decorating our cabin when she heard a strangled cry from outside — like someone was being mugged — and ran out. It turned out there was no Alpine Meadows Mugger, it was just Megan making excited noises.
Megan, Program Support Coordinator: I secretly believed/hoped it would definitely snow, and finally it was confirmed that I wasn’t spitting on my face — it was snow! I’m from Southern California and live in Phoenix! Do you know how often it snows there?? NEVER IT NEVER SNOWS THERE.
Sophia: I was in Wolf standing guard at the ‘Sponsors -take a soda- Table’ when Megan popped through the door and suddenly said ‘Hey guys it’s snowing! There’s real flurries coming down!’
Liz C: Neither of us had been in real-life-falling-snow before so we were REALLY pumped even though it was still sunny out.
Liz C.: B on the other hand was not impressed with either the snow or our obnoxious excitement.
Chloe: I was slightly sick, extremely over-caffeinated, and filled with crazy amounts of nervous and excited energy, but I was sitting by the entrance to Wolf with Hansen and Mey, the snow was beautiful, and everything felt perfect.
Rachel: We had decided that it pretty much definitely wouldn’t snow, but if it did it would only be for like 5 minutes, and if it was for longer than 5 minutes it didn’t matter because it definitely wouldn’t stick. Obviously it ended up snowing for like 6 hours and accumulating about 4 inches just as our intrepid campers had to drag their suitcases through the snowy woods while exhausted and jetlagged!
Bren, The Bangles Counselor & Editorial Assistant: I have never been at Camp when the campers arrived. During the only other Camp I attended I was driving a shuttle and it was the very last shuttle that didn’t get up the mountain until well into the night. To see those lovely faces with their hopes and dreams and abundance of Trader Joe’s bags was heart warming and life affirming.
Lizz: Snow fell everywhere on the ground! At first it was really just cute! Then it got sort of seriously snowy. And then it was snow-pocalypse.
Emily: Actual snow sticking to the ground and our faces! It was Narnia.
Carly: A-Camp 4.0 began like any other until it forgot to stop snowing and was henceforth known as #SNOWCAMP.
Lizz: I tried really hard to rebrand A-Camp: “Snow-Camp.”
Sophia: From then on it felt like some sort of nutty holiday, folks went from suspicious to delighted to afraid to drinking. But we had each other, and Christmas music. And Katie who brought endless hot apple cider and warmed our bellies.
Crystal: I live in Australia and so when snow started to fall it was a very special and beautiful moment. Less beautiful were the industrial garbage bags that lined my shoes for the next two days.
Yvonne: Before this, I had seen snow only once in my life. It snowed on Christmas Eve/Day in 2004 in my hometown, where triple-digit temperatures are the norm and the last time snow fell was in 1895. So seeing snow (for the second time ever in my life) on the mountain when all the campers were arriving was equally magical to me for some reason. It was just surreal.
Mey, Flashdance Counselor & Contributing Editor: I could tell that it was going to be an experience totally unlike any other I had ever had.
Hansen: I didn’t have a specific role for camper arrival and I sure as hell wasn’t going to venture into the snow, so I made up a role by taking the Welcome Friends cat flag podium and putting it beside the door. Then Yvonne, Mey, and sometimes Calendar Girl Dani scared/surprised/welcomed campers as they came in and made them stand in confusing lines. I feel like we were a success, personally, or at least the Welcome Friends flag was a success.
Mey: We formed what was pretty much the greatest welcoming committee of all-time. Hansen looked very knowledgeable from behind the podium and I was there to provide backup as we guided all the incoming campers to the registration table.
Carly: I love when everyone starts arriving, it’s always one of my favorite camp moments. This time, Alpine looked so magical.
Lizz: Vanessa and I greeted buses which was doubly fun in the snow! Everyone was sort of mesmerized by the winter wonderland around us!
Stef: I offered to help greet the buses as they arrived with Vanessa, which was really exciting! In past camps, I’d never been able to stay on-site and greet the campers as they arrived, so this was tremendously thrilling – except for the fact that it was snowing, and none of us had brought clothes fit for anything more extreme than a slightly chilly fall night. I was wearing a pleather jacket, fingerless gloves and worn-out boots with holes in the soles. We almost froze to death, but… is it too cheesy to say our hearts were warmed when the first bus pulled up loaded with bright-eyed campers? Cos they were.
Megan: After they check in, I help show take the campers to their new homes. The little game of “Lets get lost finding your cabin together” took on a new form — one of dire survival — and became “Let’s get lost finding your cabin together in the snow while also trying not to fall.” I always fall.
Chloe: I will never forget when the second shuttle arrived, it felt like a scene right out of a movie. Watching all of the adorable smiling campers walk down the path in the snow was one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen.
Robin: Riese and Laneia greeted campers by name, signed them in and had them choose a pronoun sticker, a new custom we implemented at A-Camp to help prevent misgendering.
Riese: I thought it’d be cute to have little color-coded pronoun stickers so that even from a distance, you would know. Some people were really confused about the pronoun stickers, I think a few people took “ze” thinking it was just a fun word to have on your nametag.
Ali: Guys. I hate the snow. I hate hate hate hate it with a passion that burns with the fire of a thousand suns. But when it started snowing on the day the shuttles full of rosy-cheeked campers were due to arrive, I didn’t get my storm-cloud look. Somehow, experiencing the snow with Campers made it okay? Like, here was this different thing we were all going to do and have together.
Robin: DeAnne Smith handed out hot cups of apple cider off of a tray while my co-director, incidentally nicknamed “hot cups,” and I walked around greeting campers and taking them to their cabins!
Laneia: You think you’ve lived a whole, fulfilling life, but if you haven’t been served hot cider from a gleaming, silver tray by DeAnne Smith on a mountain with snow falling outside and the soundtrack to The Nightmare Before Christmas playing while the fireplace warms up the room WELL THEN YOU HAVEN’T LIVED.
Stef: Our hearts were warmed by the cider, but also by the jar of moonshine I had snuck up the mountain. A bunch of the Gossip were on the first bus, and it was love at first sight.
Emily: For some campers, it was their first time being in falling snow EVER.
Mey: Soon Christmas lights had been hung up, Christmas music was playing and DeAnne Smith was bringing hot apple cider to everyone who came in from the cold. Outside there were people building snowmen, having snowball fights and putting on layers of clothes. It was magical.
Yvonne: It was very pretty to watch and to top it off I kept drinking gallons of cider by the fireplace in Wolf Lodge.
Crystal: I missed the arrival of many campers because I was running a craft and board game situation in Deer Lodge. Alice Motes started a game of Cards Against Humanity which was eventually abandoned for a snowball fight.
Marni: In true A-Camp fashion, everybody rolled with it and we had a relaxing, fun first afternoon with fires going, indoor games, hot cider and snowball fights.
Robin: Danielle built some adorable snow people outside of Wolf Lodge! Some campers built an amazing snow cat.
Carmen: Ultimately, it was a fateful day where Daniela, Geneva, and I talked mad shit about life in a long car ride up a snowy mountain. And it was in this moment that I was both infinite and increasingly concerned about my lack of winter wear.
Ali: As my campers (WILDCATS!) started to arrive, it was clear that the snow was going to be wonderful with them. After Camp 3.0’s Outlaws made the Nope Cat their unofficial mascot, I nearly died with delight when Reva and Cameron made a Nope-Grumpy-Cat-Snow-Creature. Basically my cabin is always wonderful. Always. Every time.
Donna, The Gossip Counselor: My first peek at The Gossip cabin campers was of them huddled together in the snow with all their bags and luggage. Instead of being somewhat grumpy about the weather and/or tired from the trip, I found them bubbling over with excitement and joy. This is when I knew they were going to be a fun group and instant friends.
Cee: I spent the time between the start of flurries until the last campers finally arrived worried about everyone on the road.
Carly: Everyone was so excited and things seemed to be going fine despite the weather… until a bus got stranded on the side of the mountain.
Riese: It was just like April camp! Except that instead of one van popping a tire on the highway and one SUV breaking down on the side of the mountain, it was one shuttle bus with smashed-in windows from um, falling ice rocks from hell or something.
Carly: I see you, #strugglebus.
Riese: We were delaying dinner in hopes the last bus would arrive, and then we were delaying cabin initiation in hopes that the last bus would arrive, but the Rescue Mission took more time than anticipated.
Marni: It was not the *most* fun thing we’ve had to deal with at camp so far? But the campers on board were somehow still in good spirits when I arrived to start ferrying them back to the site, despite being trapped on a bus in a blizzard on the side of a mountain in the dark, and I think that really speaks to the devotion that A-Campers have to having a good time.
Carmen: I was Geneva’s navigator during her first trip to the bus, and in the car with some of the humans from said #StruggleBus, I tried to keep everyone calm by getting them excited for our cozy accomodations at Alpine Meadows and talking about what they could expect when we got to the campsite. We agreed we could all use a drink, but we also agreed after Geneva inquired that it was in fact too soon for a mudslide joke.
Lizz: I was slightly worried, particularly because my adorable perfect girlfriend Chrissie was on that bus! Once everyone was happily back at camp drinking hot cocoa everything seemed okay. I was so impressed with how everyone on the bus just persevered and stayed upbeat. What a group of girls!
Carmen: Stef was one of the first people I ran into after the #StruggleBus chronicles had ended, and she imparted upon me the invaluable gift of a headlamp.
Dani RDS: Apple cider has the sweetest taste on the side of the mountain, in the middle of a slight blizzard, when you are sharing it with twenty three of your favorite faces.
Robin: Even though Marni had to take trips to rescue the campers who were on struggle-bus, it still felt like the perfect evening.
Carmen: I ran around in the snow showing people around and then landed at Hologram initiation, which was a very special and 3D-glasses-filled moment in our lives. I loved all of my campers for being hilarious, amazing, and, in some cases, extremely talented illustrators. And with Sophia at my side, I knew they’d be in good hands for a great A-Camp experience – no matter which season it had rapidly become.
Sophia: Two of our campers and Carmen were on The Bus, but they arrived safe and fantastically sound at just the right moment when I was starting to feel that The Holograms believed I was 100% nuts (and the least intimidating person they’d ever met) and was maybe going to sleep on their floor after repeating the same sentence about glass outside three more times. But I love you guys. Hi Holograms you’re the best.
Crystal: As the Heartthrobs cabin, Hansen and I thought it only appropriate to initiate our campers by talking about, and looking at photos of, hot babes.
Donna: There was a love fest in our cabin. Everyone connected effortlessly and magically. Stef and I had a whole get-to-know-you initiation planned, but it almost seemed superfluous, because the campers bonded so fast and furiously! Instead we focused on the cheer. Somehow, a “bearnicorn” was born in the process and bearnicorn became the both the symbol for The Gossip and a central character near and dear to our hearts. Bearnicorn, as you may have gathered, is a mythical queer being that invokes the power of the bear (because we all know there are like, actual, real bears at ACamp) and the kick-assness of a unicorn. Katie S. embraced the bearnicorn and walked around adorned as such throughout our days and nights on the mountain. Bearnicorn will always be within us, and lurking in the shadows.
Stef: A lot of my cabin had met up in LA the day before camp, so they had an easy rapport already and didn’t need much introduction. Donna and I adored them immediately; the Gossip were some of the most hilarious, fun-loving lunatics I’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing. Our campers immediately set about building a ridiculous bearnicorn atop Katie Spielberger’s head out of spare cabin decorations and crafting supplies, baptized each other with a blessed bottle of Jameson, and won my heart with their precious enthusiasm.
Laneia: Our elaborate cabin initiation/virgin sacrifice (jk) (or am I) had to be delayed, but the Runaways were totally cool about it and hung out with their big sister cabin, the Blackhearts, and Vanessa, our sister-mother-daughter! Then we had a really fantastic initiation and everything was beautiful.
Riese: Then we all piled into Eagle Lodge for the opening night campfire, sans campfire.
Stef: We’d never had inclement weather before (the sun has always shone brightly up on our fair queermo gathering), but this time we got to experience an indoor campfire (read: yule log on a projector).
Robin: Because Marni was running late driving car loads of campers up the long driveway to camp, and Riese was still bonding with her cabin, I was left wondering how to stall the already antsy crowd gathered for the opening night festivities.
Stef: Through sheer frostbitten delirium, DeAnne, Lizz, Robin and I had a stroke of genius. We announced our idea to the AV club and climbed on stage with very little idea of what we were about to do, but the “A Camp Blues” just poured out of us. It was a very soulful moment for everyone.
Robin: Love the spontaneous things that happen at camp, sometimes out of necessity.
Brittani: I knew the cabin Liz C. and I were charged with was a group of winners when I wanted to change the name of the cabin from Firestars to Firestarters and everyone was immediately on board. This was solidified when they echoed the same amount of jadedness and overall shade for camp cheers by refusing to actually come up with one and instead opted for possibly setting everything/everyone on fire by standing on stage with a bunch of lit lighters.
Brittani: They went on to prove themselves way cooler than any group of humans should ever be every day and specifically, every dinner when they would have Liz and I read the notes they left in the very earnest Comments/Questions/Concerns box we’d put in the cabin the first day of camp. I’d like to think that my need for rules and order and Liz’s need to make sure everyone is happy makes us good co-counselors but we probably just lucked out with this group of campers.
Hansen: Heartthrobs cabin was clearly the best so it’s only natural that our cheer was the best. We won camp cheers. It went like this: H is for the H in Heartthrobs, E is for the E in Heartthrobs, A is for the A in Heartthrobs, R is for the R in Heartthrobs, T is for the T in Heartthrobs, T is for the other T in Heartthrobs, H is for the H in Heartthrobs, R is for the R in Heartthrobs, O is for Orange. And then my campers just ended it right there because they’re amazing and everyone was laughing too hard to hear them finish anyway.
Crystal: Jessica’s cabin cheer won our hearts and also A-Camp.
Robin: By the time we were done singing the blues and cabins shared their cheers, we were able to introduce the entire staff and hear DeAnne’s adorable “Nerdy Love Song”.
Carly: We pulled it off and everyone had a great time and everything was okay in the world.
Carmen: The first night, Alice Motes and I popped a bottle in her honor – but I wanted her to get the primo treatment, so we did bottle service. It was my strongest start to this thing yet.
Marni: That first day really set the tone for the rest of camp – all week the vibe was really positive and everyone seemed to just make the best of everything and have a good time. It was definitely the most relaxed camp we’ve had, at least from a directorial perspective.
Bren:. Riese and Robin and Marni Bear and all the staff have really created something special on top of that mountain.
Cee: In the end, everything turned out ok and we had a super beautiful morning to wake up to. There’s nothing like fresh snow in the morning and it’s something I really loved about this camp.
Tune in tomorrow for the next installment in this thrilling series!
