2021 season recap

Our 2021 season is just winding down and it was by far our best...the best staff ever assembled, the best boats and equipment, the best groups of campers we have had the pleasure of working with and the best attitudes from everyone involved dealing with five weeks of rain from June through July! A lot goes into making a summer of camp happen so take a look below at some fun camp stats:

  • 140 campers over 7 weeks (plus 10 campers at our Sunapee Day Camp)

  • Campers stayed an average of 1.125 weeks at camp

  • Average number of campers each week was 20

  • Campers were 27% girls and 73% boys

  • Average camper age was 13.66

  • 54% new campers and 46% returners

  • Campers came from 16 states (CA, CO, CT, DC, FL, GA, IL, MA, ME, MT, NH, NJ, NY, OR, PA,RI and TX) as well as Washington, DC, Mexico and the U.S. Virgin Islands (we were closed to most international campers in 2021)

  • There were 7 coaches, 1 chef and 1 director

  • Average coach age was 19.7

  • 3 coaches had their birthdays during the summer (Sam, Zoe and Elijah)

  • 3,960 ridiculous meals prepared by Chef Cher who used approximately:

    • 1290 eggs

    • 370 pounds of flour

    • 110 pounds of strawberries

    • 60 pounds of chocolate chips (mostly in 860 homemade choc chip muffins)

    • 250 pounds of chicken

    • 150 gallons of lemonade

    • 65 hours a week of cooking (plus countless hours shopping)

    • 75 five-gallon buckets of non-meat scraps fed to local hungry pigs to divert food waste from the landfill

  • 5 pallets of concrete used to pour new cabin footings

  • 11,309 unique visitors to watermonkeycamp.com in the last 12 months

  • 9,278 photos uploaded and shared with camp families

  • 540 hours on our 2 2021 MasterCraft NXT22's (Bob and Marley)

  • 16 boat oil changes (plus 1 water pump)

  • 3048.935 gallons of gas burned producing roughly 34 metric tons of CO2 which we offset with contributions to the Society For The Protection of New Hampshire Forests and CoolEffect.org Our contributions this year will offset about 75 metric tons of CO2 with the extra going towards camper travel to and from camp!

  • We have now offset around 300 metric tons of CO2 since 2012!

Those stats do not really do justice to all of the fun we had this summer but hopefully it was a good read! We are hard at work getting ready for 2022 and I sincerely hope to see all of our campers back again for great times on the boats!

-Evan

We went for a hike!

We have been spending lots of time at camp lately. It is such a good spot to stay isolated and avoid the pandemic craziness. We know we are fortunate to have this escape and we try to take advantage of everything the lakes region has to offer.

He’s probably a bit too big for the backpack but Kai was not about to hike the mountain on his own!

He’s probably a bit too big for the backpack but Kai was not about to hike the mountain on his own!

Mt. Molly is a great little ‘mountain’ right beyond the banks of Merrymeeting Lake, where our camp is located. I have hiked it hundreds of times…with campers, with friends and even a daily run up to the summit while training for a Tough Mudder in 2010. Taking my own kids up, though, is a new and awesome experience.

The trail up. Not much snow this year!

The trail up. Not much snow this year!

With almost no snow and mild temps the going was easy even with 40 pounds on my back (some combination of Kai (3 years old) and snacks for Kai (limitless). We talked about trees, animal tracks and rocks for the whole 25 minute trek up to the peak.

At the top we soaked up the sun and took in the views of the lake and surrounding hills. We spotted a bald eagle, a hawk and a few airplanes as well!

Looking west-ish at sprawling Lake Winnipesaukee!

Of course I had to fly camp’s new drone on this gorgeous bluebird day! The above shot is from about 1,200 feet above the summit of Mt. Molly looking out over Lake Winnipesaukee. Gorgeous.

Merrymeeting Lake

Merrymeeting Lake

From the same altitude I snapped a few shots of Merrymeeting. The sun glare was pretty intense so the back side of the lake was the only picture that was worth keeping. As you can see, mid January and not even close to frozen!

Look up, look down.

Look up, look down.

The above shot is of the peak of Mt. Molly. We are standing directly in the middle (if you zoom in you can see us standing near my black coat which I used as a takeoff/landing pad for the drone.

The hike down was quick and Kai loved every second of the day. Being in the outdoors is the best!

first storm o' the season

The weather in NH is notoriously shifty. Two weeks ago I was hustling through bike trails in near-perfect conditions and then out of nowhere the temperature dropped about 100 degrees in one day and we got walloped with a great early season snow storm.

The storm started out on Saturday with some rain and by mid-day it was sleeting and we thought it would fizzle out entirely. By late afternoon, though, the wind was howling and the snow was flying sideways. My boys, the dog and I had some fun in the first flakes of the season. Visibility at the lake (above left) was just about zero.

By early evening it was clear that this storm was going to linger and make a mess. We lost power around 3:30PM and it would not be restored for three days. No problem, right? My wife cooked up an amazing meal using cell phone flashlights and the propane burners and we built a ‘campsite’ around the fireplace for the guys to stay warm. On Sunday we woke up, packed up and escaped to where power and heat were more plentiful. With the car running I hopped out to grab one gorgeous picture of the sun hitting camp:

We came back on Monday to check on camp and make sure no pipes were freezing (and have a blast outside).

With Tuckerman zooming around we explored, dug out and ate lots of fresh snow.

Here’s to winter!

And…the calm after the storm.

Camp Update

Hello Camp Friends!

We have not posted in a few weeks so this is just a quick update.

First, a word on enrollment for 2021. We are currently accepting enrollments from any families who were signed up in 2020 when we had to cancel due to COVID-19. On November 25 we will start accepting enrollments from all other families. At this time all of our weeks have spaces and we do not anticipate any weeks filling before enrollment opens up to everyone. If you have questions about signing up, availability or anything else regarding camp please feel free to get in touch!

Next, camp is just gorgeous this time of year.

Stunning sunsets, courtesy of mother nature.

We have been closing up the property for the past few weeks. That entails winterizing every building and lots and lots of raking leaves! I have had some help, though…

My boys, Finn and Kai, are loving fall at the lake.

Going forward we will be finalizing our staffing for 2021 and solidifying our COVID-19 protocols for campers and staff. We could not be more excited to reopen next summer.

That’s it for now! Get in touch with questions and we hope to see you all at camp in a few short months!

Torn flag charity raffle

Hello campers and friends!

For the first time ever we are raffling off a piece of camp history! This flag hung proudly at the entrance of camp for eight seasons and was displayed slopeside at all NH USASA ski/snowboard events from 2013 to 2019. All of that use has definitely taken a toll on this collector’s item!

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We will be raffling off this flag to raise money for our favorite charity, Cooleffect.org! As a zero-carbon summer camp we have used this charity to offset all of our CO2 emissions for years. Their projects are innovative and exciting and they use all donations to fund their goal of combating global climate change.

Raffle steps:

  1. Make a donation to cooleffect.org by December 1, 2020. Use this link: https://www.cooleffect.org/content/donate.

    • For every $10 you donate you will get one raffle entry! There is no maximum number of entries.

  2. Email your donation receipt(s) to me at evan@watermonkeycamp.com.

  3. We will randomly draw a winner after the raffle closes on December 1, 2020.

  4. The winner will receive this awesome flag in the mail!

Let’s raise some money for a great cause and give this flag a new home!

-Evan