Welcome Summer 2025!

Happy Summer 2025! Term 1 at Camp Balcones Springs is officially off to the races and more PHUN than ever. On Sunday night, we began camp with our classic summer tradition – team initiation – where old campers put on their red, blue, green, or purple to welcome new faces at Camp Balcones Springs onto one of four camp teams, the Texas Rangers, Rough Riders, Lone Stars, Silver Spurs.

On Monday, boys and girls of all ages dove right into their activity schedules for the day after a morning of team competition games. At Camp Balcones Springs, every other day of the week is designated as either a Girls Major Day, where girl campers participate in the activities they have chosen to focus on during their time at camp, or a Boys Major Day, where boy campers do the same. Whenever it’s an “off day” from their majors, campers partake in a “minor day” where they participate in a pre-scheduled offering of activities alongside their cabin mates and peers. Some of the week’s minor activities have included tubing on Lake Joy, pickleball, cooking, fishing, archery, tennis, arts and crafts, jewelry-making, axe-throwing, and swimming in the lake and pool!

Our youngest campers – who don’t select their own major activities – traveled around camp trying their hand at different things, including cooking, tiny boat racing, survival skills, pickleball, tubing on the lake, and swimming!

In our Women’s Fitness Class (a major activity), campers took part in a yoga class focusing on the feeling of joy. Girls practiced breathing exercises to aid in regulating their emotions – breathing in love, joy, and patience while exhaling out anger, fear, and anxiety. The girls practiced classic yoga poses both individually and in pairs, building strength and working on their flexibility.

After two full days of activities, campers partook in one of our first-week-of-camp classics – Compound Night! At CBS, all of our campers are grouped in cabins by age and gender, and each grouping is led by one of our summer leadership members known as Compound Heads. Every term, each compound head is awarded a budget to create a unique program specifically designed for the age group and gender under their charge – and the creativity just gets better and better every year! These special activities help campers build friendships with boys and girls outside of their cabin, as well as strengthen the relationships they have begun building with their counselors and bunkmates.

This week, all of our high school-aged campers participated in a “Sip ‘N Paint” evening, enjoying mocktails as they watched the sunset from the Lake Ted Blob Dock and painted watercolors of the scene. Naturally, lots of chatting and joking took place in addition to the wonderful art being made!

Across camp on the baseball field, our E Compound campers – boy campers in middle school – participated in a version of the Scottish “Highland Games.”. The boys competed in the caber toss, kilt folding, hammer throw, and competitive shaving. Afterward, the victors were brought to the Rio Grande Dining Hall for their “spud reward.” However, due to the Irish Potato Famine, they soon learned the British had stolen all of their potatoes. So, the boys had to chase down the evil Brits to successfully return the spuds to the Irish farmers. As a reward, our fierce Celtic warriors were given a classic Irish treat… a warm chocolate chip cookie cake doused in vanilla ice cream, otherwise known as a pizookie!

For our D Compounders – girl campers in middle school – Compound Night began as a DIY spa, featuring various homemade face and under-eye masks made from all natural ingredients! The girls sipped on some mocktails while they relaxed under their masks and painted their nails. After a while of quiet, soothing sounds, the music turned up, and the spa transformed into a dance floor for an epic Camp Dance Class! All the girls came together and worked on mastering all of our CBS dance classics in order to get ready for our theme nights (kicking off on Wednesday)!

B Compound campers – elementary-aged boys – took part in a Camp Balcones Springs version of the Amazing Race! The boys had 15 different feats to accomplish in the form of a giant relay spanning across various parts of camp.

Meanwhile, the C Compound Campers – elementary-aged girls – transformed into Minions for an evening and competed in a dance competition to STEAL THE MOON. Each cabin was given a song and had to perform a 30-second dance for our special guest judges, Gru and Vector. While each cabin brought something different to the table, Johnson Cabin took the win and successfully stole the moon for their cabin! After everyone’s hard work, all of the girls were treated to a mini ice cream sundae bar!