Weekly Update: June 7th, 2026

by Ariella Rogge on June 07

After a full day of health center check-in’s, luggage moving, bed making and cookie eating, we are off!

It was an absolutely STUNNING day in Florissant, CO–this morning the sun was shining…and then, when it started to get just a wee bit too hot, some cloud cover rolled in and allowed campers and staff to continue to enjoy playing Gagaball, 9-Square, welcoming the buses, and settling into their cabins and units in the “Cool”ardo breezes.

After a yummy dinner and the traditional state song at High Trails (“Is there anyone here from Indiana?…”) and a short Vespers as well as a strong BOOM (Brotherhood Of OutdoorsMen) welcome at Big Spring and some good chanting, campers at both camps enjoyed time with their living units meeting their JCs and Outbackers, eating snacks, and reviewing community boundaries and discussing living unit expectations.

We love Opening Day for SO many reasons:

  • The Campers…we have been waiting for them for a long time (for the wranglers…over 3 weeks!)
  • The Energy…staff are tired of hearing us talk, acting out scenarios, and intellectualizing the job–they are ready to DO it and the wave of excitement the campers’ bring is like adding a nitrous burst to a turbo engine
  • The Summer…Colorado is weird, many days have all of the seasons, but once the kids arrive the warm days just seem warmer
  • The Cookies…Bernie the Baker works for WEEKS on the homemade baked goods and cookies we have on Opening Day, and the pumpkin bread just hits different after your first solid Gagaball game of the season
  • The Parents & Guardians…simply put, camp parents and guardians are the best.

Here’s the deal: we all love working with you because you are passionate and fiercely committed to your kids AND you also know that a camp experience–allowing your child to be away from you for two weeks or a month–creates new growth, new perspectives and new opportunities for independence and self-efficacy. We also know it is hard.

Every single one of you who said goodbye to your camper at an airport this morning, or squeezed them tight even as they were trying to shimmy away to go play hacky-sack with their friends in front of the yurt, or held back tears as you waved from the car with a big smile knows that it was hard to say goodbye–and you also know they can (and you can) do it.

We love partnering with camp parents because we know we have alignment in our goals, purpose and mission–to create an opportunity in the outdoors “to live together…building a sense of self, a sense of community, a sense of the earth and a sense of wonder through fun and adventure.”

Our mission doesn’t seek specificity–only the individual creation of a “sense.” This allows us to be a community of individuals: bringing our own perceptions, values, upbringings and experiences into this community space–and discovering, like Sandy and Laura Sanborn hoped for over 78 years ago, that we have more in common than not.

And doing hard things is something we all have in common. It’s why we have 10 year olds who will climb mountains this summer and 15 year olds who will sit in a saddle for 8 straight hours and 8 year olds who will sleep in a tent for the first time and hear owls hooting in the distance. It is why we have both “shout-outs” and “ownerships” in our evening “Round-Up” meetings with both campers and staff because it is sometimes hard to admit you made a mistake. It is why campers get to choose their own trips and activities: sometimes they are with their friends, and sometimes they aren’t…because we know being uncomfortable helps us practice curiosity, humility, empathy, vulnerability and kindness in new ways with both ourselves and others.

Usually we say “thank you for sharing your kids with us” in our final update–but we want to kick off the summer with that sentiment because we know sharing them is a hard thing to do–and we take that responsibility very seriously. We also take having fun very seriously, and we are seriously going to have a lot of fun this summer!

Our camp photographers have posted a small collection of photos from some of the day’s events for your enjoyment and they will post a much larger collection from the first few days of camp on Wednesday evening, including the Cabinside and Unit photos.

If you have not already done so, please download the Campanion App and consider uploading a photo of your camper. On Sunday nights when we typically post photos, the Camp InTouch/Campanion platform will be able to use secure facial recognition software to find images of your camper and send you a push notification when those photos are posted.

We will continue to add to our list of “Things We Love About Camp” this week with Opening Campfires, Cabinside and Unit Overnights, All-day trips, and much, much more! Thank you for believing in the importance of “doing hard things” and for partnering with us to make this 78th Sanborn Summer the best ever!

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Ariella Rogge
About Ariella Rogge

Ariella started her career at Sanborn when she was twelve. After five years of camper and five years of Sanborn staff experience, she continued her work with kids in the high school classroom. Ariella and her family returned to Sanborn in 2001 to take on the Program Director role which she held til 2012. She and Elizabeth Marable became co-directors of High Trails in 2013 and then Ariella became the High Trails Director in 2020. In the fall of 2022 she became the Director of Sanborn Western Camps, overseeing the director teams of both Big Spring and High Trails. She lists mountain golf, Gymkhana, climbing mountains and making Pad Thai in the backcountry as some of her favorite activities at camp. Ariella received a B.A. in English from Colorado College and is a certified secondary English educator,an ACCT Level 2 Ropes Course Technician, an ARC lifeguard and NREMT and WEMT. She lives in Florissant in the summer and in Green Mountain Falls during the school year so she can stay involved with the busy lives of her husband, Matt, and two sons, Lairden and Karsten.