California is on fire. The 200-mile Rim Fire is devouring homes and forcing evacuations. Now it is threatening San Francisco's power supply in Yosemite, as well as its water source--the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir--just four miles from the blaze. As of this morning, it's only 5% contained.
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| That rock was perfect for thinking on. |
One of the areas currently under severe threat is Berkeley Tuolumne Camp, where I spent the first sixteen summers of my life with my family. It's just outside of Groveland, nestled in the trees along the south fork of the Tuolumne River. It smells like kit kit dizze and warm, dry pine needles.
When I tell people about my camp I feel like I'm in that episode of
This American Life called "Notes on Camp," in which non-camp people have a hard time truly understanding the experiences of their camp friends. No matter what I say to people in my life who have never been to camp--or to BTC in particular--there is virtually no way to convey exactly what it has meant to me.
BTC is not a sleep-away camp for acne-ridden pre-teens. There aren't counselors assigned to cabins, no rows of bunk beds or missing-retainer scandals. There are camp-wide activities, but none of them are mandatory. There are sports courts and a swimming hole, a dining hall with a circle of green Adirondack chairs just outside the main entrance. There's a camp store. A rec hall. Stone showers with no ceilings so you can look up at night and see the stars. Families stay in cabins with canvas roofs, and many, like mine, drag their bed frames onto the deck and wake in the morning covered in pine needles and a whisper-thin layer of dew.
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| We certainly did love our tie-dye. |
I made some of the best friends I've ever had at camp, and they truly have become my family. Every evening before we were summoned to dinner by the dining hall's big bell, my family and our friends would have Happy Hour down on Lower Beach. Not many people ventured down there, so for the most part we had the river to ourselves. My dad and my best friend Sara's dad, Lee, would play their guitars. The grown-ups would excuse themselves just long enough to walk up the path to the camp-organized Adult Happy Hour and return with paper plates full of mini quiches and chocolate-covered strawberries. We "played" horseshoes (and I mean that in the broadest sense of the term) and waded barefoot in the water looking for fool's gold. My absolute favorite memory in all my years at camp was standing ankle-deep in the river with my closest friends--Sara and Julia and Alex and Eli--and building rock sculptures with rocks the size of our heads while our families drank wine and told stories on the beach. When I think of the time in my life when I have been most at peace with myself and with the world, that is what I remember.
And now Stanislaus National Forest is burning, and Harden Flat Road is burning, and there is a hellish orange haze above my camp. The City of Berkeley has doused the camp in fire retardant, but with both the growth potential and terrain difficulty listed as extreme and the blaze pushing eastward, there's little for me to feel except sick to my stomach. I think about everything this camp has given to me, all the people who are so much like family that I have to remind myself we don't share the same blood, and it's difficult for me to imagine a greater loss. I grew up in this place. I threw handfuls of sand into the air when I was four and called it Fairy Dust. I played badminton with Sara until one in the morning when the the court lights went off. I took the pottery classes my mom taught and wove pine needle baskets on the beach. My friends and I rafted down the river to the old concrete bridge at Naco and then walked back along the road with our inner tubes around our heads like inflatable necklaces. We hiked upriver during Quiet Hour ("In your tents or out of camp, please. Thank you") to Breakfast Rock and Small Falls, which were so piddly one summer that Emiliano stopped them with his foot. For the rest of my life I will experience no greater sense of anticipation, like a levee about to collapse, than staring out the window of the van on our way into camp when the roofs of the first tents came into view across the river.
Camp is in my thoughts, and may it be in the thoughts of anyone who has ever loved a place so much that it feels like a tangible part of them.
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| My brother is there right now. He emailed me this screen shot from his phone. |
I made some of the best friends I've ever had at camp, and they truly have become my family. Every evening before we were summoned to dinner by the dining hall's big bell, my family and our friends would have Happy Hour down on Lower Beach. Not many people ventured down there, so for the most part we had the river to ourselves. My dad and my best friend Sara's dad, Lee, would play their guitars. The grown-ups would excuse themselves just long enough to walk up the path to the camp-organized Adult Happy Hour and return with paper plates full of mini quiches and chocolate-covered strawberries. We "played" horseshoes (and I mean that in the broadest sense of the term) and waded barefoot in the water looking for fool's gold. My absolute favorite memory in all my years at camp was standing ankle-deep in the river with my closest friends--Sara and Julia and Alex and Eli--and building rock sculptures with rocks the size of our heads while our families drank wine and told stories on the beach. When I think of the time in my life when I have been most at peace with myself and with the world, that is what I remember. 
And now Stanislaus National Forest is burning, and Harden Flat Road is burning, and there is a hellish orange haze above my camp. The City of Berkeley has doused the camp in fire retardant, but with both the growth potential and terrain difficulty listed as extreme and the blaze pushing eastward, there's little for me to feel except sick to my stomach. I think about everything this camp has given to me, all the people who are so much like family that I have to remind myself we don't share the same blood, and it's difficult for me to imagine a greater loss. I grew up in this place. I threw handfuls of sand into the air when I was four and called it Fairy Dust. I played badminton with Sara until one in the morning when the the court lights went off. I took the pottery classes my mom taught and wove pine needle baskets on the beach. My friends and I rafted down the river to the old concrete bridge at Naco and then walked back along the road with our inner tubes around our heads like inflatable necklaces. We hiked upriver during Quiet Hour ("In your tents or out of camp, please. Thank you") to Breakfast Rock and Small Falls, which were so piddly one summer that Emiliano stopped them with his foot. For the rest of my life I will experience no greater sense of anticipation, like a levee about to collapse, than staring out the window of the van on our way into camp when the roofs of the first tents came into view across the river.
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