Crow’s Nest Camp Week Five

By Daniel Barringer, Preserve Manager

The fifth week of summer camp is over; the summer was a whirl of activity. I enjoy hanging out with the 7th and 8th graders who have been through our programs for years and who we have watched grow and mature. We went on several field trips including kayaking the Schuylkill River and visiting Natural Lands Trust’s Cheslen Preserve. I ducked away from the program as needed to stay on top of land stewardship but I snapped photos from a few of the events.

We kayaked first on Hopewell Lake, did team-building activities, and hiked the perimeter of the lake. Here is one group at the new Hopewell Big Woods trail that connects Hopewell Furnace National Historic Site with French Creek State Park with an accessible trail. (If you drive from one place to the other it’s a few miles’ roundabout trip; but to walk from the core day-use area of the state park to the village at Hopewell Furnace only takes a few minutes.)

Here’s an amazing wisteria vine at the park picnic area.

The campers did a lot of service projects to give back to the preserve: they put away the building supplies the earlier camps had used, they moved rocks to build a low wall around the fairy village, they spread gravel on footpaths, and built a “vine house” that future campers can play in and on:

The trip on the Schuylkill Canal and River was sublime, a glorious day to drift down the river. At the end of the week we cleaned up the kayaks before returning them so we don’t transfer any weeds or pests from one water body to another.

The 7/8 camp is always bittersweet as we are saying goodbye to our oldest campers. But we hope that they will remain friends of Crow’s Nest and keep us up to date about their adventures.