YMCA Camp Ravencliff
Redway California
13, December 2012
http://ravencliff.ymcaeastbay.org/
Camp Ravencliff is under the YMCA of The East Bay. We arrived at camp and were greeted by Kim the Care taker of camp. After recently having surgery on her knee she was unable to join us on our trek around camp but graciously gave us the keys so that we could do our own exploring. This camp is located between a river and a forest. The cabins were a barn red and the camp was covered in a mossy green blanket. We walked around the whole camp enjoying the peacefulness. Their chapel and campfire pit are nestled amongst giant redwoods. We particularly enjoyed the waterfront, a stony beach on the camp side and a steep and tall rock wall cliff on the other side of the river. We stopped back at Kim’s place to drop off the keys and say goodbye. She was surrounded by all sorts of birds, quails, songbirds, and a few wild turkeys! Jack and I stopped dead in our tracks and watched for a good ten minutes as the birds pecked at the cracked corn that Kim had laid out. Kim told us a bit of the history of camp and how it was first a native american settlement. The camps most striking feature is a massive rock that curves over the hillside from the cabins to the dinning hall. The rock is made of soft sandstone and has hundreds of campers and counselors names carved into it.(Before the rock was a native american archeological site of course.) Yet the names and the birds that were intermingled on the rock gave us with a sense of the peace and the memories that are treasured at this place.
-Laura