Ridgecrest Camps

We were nervous about it’s location, but man, the New Infirmary is beautiful and fits perfectly in it’s new home on the middle green. Once used for Arap Chapel, this spot was the home site for the original house in Ridgecrest! Now, the new Arap Chapel is nestled into a piece of woods with a little more character, and privacy.  And we have put a comfortable and inviting building back onto the middle green. With an large front porch and a view of the lake, the nurses new home will also house the new nurses station as well as a place for campers and staff to hang out on the porch and rock during free time. If you have not seen this building in person, then you will no doubt be impressed. We look forward to seeing you soon….camp is just around the corner!

The new infirmary at Boys Camp is nearing completion, with electrical fixtures like heating and lighting being installed recently with fans are in each of the bedrooms. Also, hardwood flooring is down in the bedrooms, and the vinyl flooring is down in the nurse station and sick bay area. Water has been hooked up to the building now, which is an all important necessity. In order to do this, a large trench was dug in the middle of the lake road. It has since been covered back up, but for a few days, people walking around the lake had to detour over the middle green. From here, the new infirmary will be hooked up to the power lines, and sod will be put down on the bare soil surrounding the building.

After snow put off the completion of the woodwork on the Spilman Addition, workers were finally able to put up the railing along the outside of the porch. Their work looks fantastic! Most of the woodwork for the railing was done in a workshop, so the entire railing was done over the course of the day today. Now all that is left to do is paint it and  put rocking chairs on it!

It almost looks like this building was meant to be there! The new Camp Ridgecrest Infirmary went up fast! Although there is still some work to be done, the framing, windows, doors, showers and roof are all close to be completed! The first picture below was taken on a Friday, the first day the framing crew began. The following picture was taken on a Wednesday afternoon. That’s pretty fast…Not too shabby!

For you Frisbee Golf fans, notice the Tee Box can still be in the same place. The hole won’t be changed! We’ve gotten a lot of questions about this…a big issue for some of us Frisbee Golf regulars…

We felt like it was fitting to place the new Camp Ridgecrest Infirmary in the place of the first home ever built in Ridgecrest, right near Rogers Retreat. We’ll update these picture soon with some shots of the inside, some of the green metal roof, and some of the view from the front porch. Enjoy!

The new Shawnee cabin is coming along nicely! The electrician got it wired up, so now it only lacks rails for the deck, paint, beds and campers!

The addition to Spilman is really starting to take shape now! Next to go up will be the metal roof, with the railing soon to follow. The workers have looked pretty cold while working, but they still manage to get alot done!

We have broken ground on the New Infirmary at Ridgecrest! This will be a great addition with lots of improvements. First of all, it will be the new home for the camp nurses. Both their living quarters as well as the Nurses Station will be located in this building. The new Infirmary will help the foot traffic in and out of the Lake lodge as well as enable us to take better care of our sick campers and staff. We have received great feedback from the nurses so far, using their suggestions in our design! Not only will the new infirmary help with the flow of camp, but it will be a really cool building too. With a covered porch, and metal roof, the Infirmary will face the lake offering a great place for nurses, campers and staff to rock and relax.

You may wonder what will happen to the old Infirmary. Well, with the addition of 4 more camper cabins this summer, we will be converting 2 staff cabins into new camper cabins. So, we need a place to house these central staff. The Old Infirmary was an obvious choice. It offers a large flexible space that more than accommodates our central staff. (Have a suggestion for what to Name the Old Infirmary? Comment below…)

Another bonus: We are adding heat to the Nurses Rooms in the new Infirmary. This will enable us to offer a few rooms in the off season for alumni and staff to use when they visit. Sometimes a weekend at camp does a lot of good in the off season…we want to serve our staff and alumni, offering the chance to come, relax, and spend some time with the Lord in this place that means so much to so many people.

The Spilman Porch is underway! You can see the log limbers supporting the floor system for the porch stretching the length of the building. The logs are beautiful, and the deck is a whopping 11 feet wide…the widest deck anywhere in camp! The porch floors will be finished soon, and the logs being used upstairs in the dining hall will be ariving tomorrow. More pictures soon… (If you have yet to subscribe to this post, just click on the bottom right to make it easy to see updates!)

Look at the size of these logs! These are the timbers that will support the new addition to Spilman! Using Chainsaws, nails, and hammers, the men muscled these hefty supports into place. They look impressive already…only making us more excited to see the finished product! More pictures soon…

The historic Spilman Lodge is growing! After waiting for the weather to cooperate, the carpenters began their work…or at least the work we could see. You can now see the outline of the new floor system. This part will move somewhat slowly, but once the foundation is secure, they will be done in only a few weeks. I found it interesting that the builders are choosing to not use many power tools. They are swinging hammers, rather than shooting nail guns. Although slower, I find this to be fitting considering they are working on a building built with no plans back in 1942. They are doing everything possible to make the addition blend and seem as if it was a part of the original structure. I’ll post more pictures very soon…