Guides & Princesses Doesn't End after the Third Year

I just got back from the third Spring Outing today. I took my 12-year old son Aaron with me to help out this weekend. Aaron's still in the program, his 7th year, now in the Trailblazers program.

Many are under the impression that Y-Guides & Princesses is only a three-year program.

It's not!

Beginning in the 4th year, Guide tribes move into the Trailblazers program and Princess tribes move into the Trailmates program. Activities are targeted toward kids 4th grade and older.

At Friday night's ice cream social at Camp Seafarer, we showed all the 3rd year princess tribes a short video about Camp Rockmont. A dad in the program made this video showing all the fun that tribes have at Rockmont in Black Mountain, NC. All the princesses seemed real excited about it. Trailblazers and Trailmates, routinely called Blazer/Mates, all go to Rockmont in August every year instead of going to Camp Kanata in November. Blazer/Mates still go to Camp Sea Gull & Seafarer for Spring Outing.

At Rockmont, Blazer/Mates get to ride the triple zipline off the mountain, over and into the lake, ride the "Gullywasher" waterslide off the side of the mountain into the lake. Plus, there's the blob! (See the "Top 8 blobs from 2006" and Moose blobbing a small lifeguard from 2007). There's "Extreme BBs", archery, canoeing, a climbing tower, fishing, hiking, shooting .22 rifles, a Saturday night picnic dinner by the lake, a square dance complete with bluegrass band and a Saturday night campfire on the top of the mountain.

Fathers & sons/daughters can also come a day earlier to go white water rafting trip down the French Broad River. This year, you can get some discount tickets to Ghost Town in the Sky, the western theme park in Maggie Valley, complete with cool gunfights, shows and rides in this old western town.

Salty Dog is going to be adding more outdoor activities for Blazer/Mates, like multi-day hiking and more! Let him know what you'd like to do! (Have you seen Salty Dog's new blog?)

Dads, while the first three years in Y-Guides & Princesses are fun and help build your relationship with your son or daughter, I personally feel that they need you more as they get older, especially as they approach middle school. The more time you spend with your child in activities like Blazer/Mates, the stronger your relationship will become and hopefully, help lead them to make good decisions.

Do all you can to keep your tribe together for as long as possible. But if your tribe does disbands, you and your child can continue to be in the program for as long as you want. Over the past few years, we've had several "children" drive their dads to Rockmont. Isn't that incredible? I think it is.