Camp Orkila

We just got back from Camp Orkila and we had a blast! Of course, the awesome, beautiful spring weather all weekend definitely helped. :)

Camp Orkila is a YMCA camp up on Orcas Island, and people who grew up here rave about it and say it's a rite of passage where everyone goes at least once. I've looked at having the kids go for overnight summer camp but it's pretty spendy so haven't booked anything. It's not just a summer camp place though; they also have weekend camps all year round that they open to groups. This year, some school friends who are part of the Y-Guides invited us to tag along (we are not part of Y guides) for their daddy-daughter camp weekend. Typically, they would all bunk together in a cabin but because of COVID restrictions, they were limiting one family per cabin in which case this opened it up for other family members to join! Yay for that because it meant a chance for Evie and I to go too.

The camp is huge - 280 acres along the west coast of Orcas Island, and probably 2-3 dozen cabins with each one with 12+ bunks (ours had 14 but not all the cabins are the same). I can imagine how much fun it would be with a bunch of kids running around in the summer, but for our weekend, it was pretty low key with probably less than 100 people altogether. We lucked out and got one of the front row cabins looking out at the water but pretty much all the cabins had fantastic views of the ocean.

Throughout the day, they had different stations open where we could drop in to do an activity. By far the kids' favorite was archery. They kept going back to practice and Evie now even wants to take archery lessons. We also did hand reel fishing, arts and crafts, marine life, played basketball and ga-ga ball and enjoyed the beach.

The only assigned activity was a selection between zip lines and rock climbing. Since Nora didn't meet the min age requirement for zip lining, we did the rock climbing instead. It was Evie, Nora and Scott's first time on a big wall like this and for the most part they said it was fun and scary. Nora was brave and eager and volunteered to go first and did great climbing up the wall, but then had a crying fit and had to be coaxed to come down. It worked out in the end, and she was really proud that she did it.

For meals, the other dads who have gone to Orkila before had warned us the dining hall food left a lot to be desired. Boy, they were not kidding. Friday night they served burgers and the meat was gray! Saturday lunch of butternut squash soup was basically salted water. The dads had the foresight to bring food so that for Saturday dinner, they did a big beach cookout where we had steak, corn, salad and hotdogs for the kids. Plus, of course, smores smores smores. It was delicious!

After we checked out of camp on Sunday, we spent the day exploring Orcas with some school buddies before catching the 8pm ferry home. I'm pooped from the long weekend of fun!