2026 Newsletter #5

Hello from the Shores of Lower Baker!

We’ve had a banner week of weather so far in the second session with bright sunny days in the low 80s and crisp, cool nights. Spirits, energy, and activity have been sky-high, and Pemi’s program is humming along. Since the last newsletter, we’ve had about as close as we get to a “normal” week here, with an uninterrupted stretch of regular program and a schedule chock full of trips, nature exploration, games, all-camp gatherings, and free choice time for the boys. This Friday we’ll resume our rivalry with Camp Tecumseh, so preparations are underway with team practices and a sense of increased focus from our campers. We’ll share more about the history of our competition with Tecumseh next week along with a full recap of the day. If you don’t want to wait until next week’s newsletter, you can also follow Pemi’s social media accounts to see how it goes, with Twitter/X (@camppemi) being your source for event-by-event updates. The focus of today’s newsletter, however, remains all of the ways in which Pemi boys have been “doing camp,” as we say. Read on to learn more about what’s been happening here in Wentworth!

The day after last week’s newsletter went out, we had a mass exodus of campers as four overnight trips and a day-hike headed off into the mountains of New Hampshire! The boys of Juniors 5 and 6 – Owen Goobic, Noah Laas-Drysdale, Jacob Mains, Hugh Peterson, Yaseen Usman, Rhodin Bernstein, Santi Losada, Henry Matlack, Oscar Mulholland, and Saleem Usman – headed up nearby Mt. Stinson to make Pemi’s first ascent of that peak for 2026. Leaving on a three-day trip to Mt. Osceola, meanwhile, were Will Drummond, Sid Grays, Logan Ramsey, Mac Casertano, Haben McNulty, and Hibbard Brown. The group hiked into a campsite near Greeley Ponds on the first day to set up base camp. On Thursday they woke up, grabbed their day packs, and spent a full day summiting Mt. Osceola, a 4,300’ peak that tested the guys with some steep sections but reward them with stunning panoramic views. They returned to their campsite, cooked dinner, and then made the hike back out the next morning.

A group of Lowers and Uppers also set out on a challenging and fun adventure for a four-day hike to the Carters (South and Middle Carter, along with Mts. Hight and Moriah). Walker Seidel, Declan McGovern, James Soldano, Declan Donohoe, Felix Grant, Juan Cediel, and Eli Enders spent four days out in some of the most remote wilderness in New Hampshire and trekked nearly 20 miles. Along the way they had spectacular views of the Presidential Mountains to the west, well into Maine to the East, and the Mahoosuc Wilderness and a number of peaks to the north. This is probably the most challenging trip that Pemi 12- and 13-year-olds can opt into, and the boys had a fantastic time rising to the occasion.

While they set out on that rugged adventure, some of their peers – Wade Fleming, Rhys Newman, Connor Pike, Bennett Purdy, Ahran Santiago, Michael Vitale, and Boden Wein – enjoyed a very different type of backpacking experience as they made the trip to Greenleaf Hut. Our veteran and full-summer newsletter devotees will already know about these incredible AMC high hut experiences, but for those just tuning in, here’s a quick primer. The AMC high huts operate as something akin to hotels in the clouds. Sitting at various elevations throughout the White Mountains, they offer hikers freshly cooked hot meals for dinner upon arrival and breakfast before setting out the next morning, along with copious amounts of hot cocoa powder. The boys sleep in bunk rooms on real beds with blankets and pillows provided by the huts rather than having to carry tents, sleeping bags, and sleeping pads. The huts are staffed by AMC “croo” members who have extensive mountain knowledge, share weather reports and trail tips, and lead naturalist education talks each evening. While there the group can leaf through logbooks dating back decades and find the names of their current counselors, directors, and Pemi groups through the years. Staying at the AMC huts is an incredible opportunity and one of the highlights of a Pemi summer for many a boy.

Staying a bit closer to home, we also had two groups of Juniors head up to the Pemi Hill shelter last week. On Wednesday night it was Tristan Peterson, Miles Casertano, Miles Mulholland, Sam Shamaly, William Sullivan, Ollie Lehn, and Will Wasnick who enjoyed an afternoon hike up, a dinner cooked over the fire, and camping out in our lean-to shelter. Later in the week we had Gaelen Brez, Flo DeLorme, Garrett Eng, Teddy Kilcullen, Liam Jones, Adam Rigg, and Jacob Mains take their turn at this fun adventure that introduces boys to the overnight camping component of the Pemi trip program.

You might be thinking that’s already a full week of trips going out, but there were still more! On Thursday morning we had two groups depart for the Presidentials Range, one to stay at Lakes of the Clouds Hut and one at Madison Springs Hut. They completed mirrored versions of the same trip, traversing and passing each other along the ridge on day two. The Lakes group was Zach Pierson, Colin McLean, Axel Kangas, Nicholas Kusik, Nolan Shah, Brecken Putzel, Gabri Hutchinson, and Shields Watizkin and the Madison crew was Nick McKay, Graeme Newman, Sam Chapin, Jacob Stilliard, Harrison Charlebois, Devran Efe, Rudi Wei, and Jack Donohoe. If you want to learn more about Pemi’s hut trips, you can do so here and here.

Last but certainly not least for our overnight trips, we also had an intrepid group of Juniors set out on an overnight hike to Mt. Cardigan. In similar fashion to the Mt. Osceola group, they set up base camp and completed the hike with just their day-packs. The group consisted of Henry Beals, Luca Bonanno, Thomas Sullivan, Russell Follansbee, Yaseen Usman, Saleem Usman, Rhodin Bernstein, and Henry Matlack. At 3,121 feet Cardigan may not be one of the tallest mountains that Pemi boys summit, but the 360º views from its peak can stand up to just about any vantage point achieved on a Pemi hike. While those boys were up on top of Cardigan, we also had the boys of Lowers 2 and 4 on the summit of Mt. Cube enjoying a classic by summiting our closest mountain. That crew was Asher Goldring, Niam Santiago, Mason Russell, Aryan Gandhi, Henry Zinn, Cam Honig, Odin Mekkawy, Rafe Romine, and Jay Wall. All told over half of camp went out on a trip last week!

On Thursday afternoon we also had a trip head out with the nature program for some photography, geological exploration, and a chance to explore one of the most picturesque areas of New Hampshire, the Franconia Notch. It was a fun group with a Junior, an Upper, and two of our 15-year-old leaders. The boys – Luca Bonanno, James Wasnick, Tom Mele, and Thomas McNelly – received great photography instruction from our lead photo teacher, Gavin Sims, and were treated to all sorts of geological and natural wisdom from Deb Kure.

While all that was going on, we had a relatively light but fun week of athletics taking place as well. A couple of our neighborhood camps has their changeover days at the end of last week or last weekend, so our intercamp sports schedule wasn’t quite as full as other weeks, but lots of boys still got out there and participated in games. On Thursday the 10s baseball team traveled over with a full squad to Camp Walt Whitman. The team consisted of Gavin Solomon, Garrett Eng, Henry Beals, Teddy Kilcullen, Winston Moore, Adam Rigg, Russell Follansbee, Liam Jones, Franklin Pyle, Jacob Mains, Henry Matlack, Rhodin Bernstein, Griffin Sears, Ollie Lehn, Zach Goobic, Gaelen Brez, and Will Wasnick. Everyone played and got good experience, with some guys pitching for a first time, others trying out different positions, and all having a blast.

For a completely different sort of a good time, our 15s travelled over to Walt Whitman last week for a dodgeball tournament. The boys always enjoy this chance to mix their love of competition with the more light-hearted (or absurdist) nature of an intercamp dodgeball game for teenagers. Pemi’s squad consisted of Charlie Toomey, Enrique Sevillano Luque, Trip McNulty, Gray Axel, Kai Karsan, Toven Putzel, Ezra Otubusin-Reese, Emmitt Baggish, River Morgan, Marcus Vitale, and Thomas McNelly. The boys had mixed results on the afternoon, winning a few and dropping several, but they had a good time out there.

The 12s baseball team also played on Friday afternoon, hosting Walt Whitman here at Pemi. The team had strong pitching from Caleb Greenberg, Henry Kaminski, and Ariyan Gandhi, and overall great effort from Drew Nelson, Pierce O’Shaughnessy, Henry Raslavicus, Hy Butler-Scott, Xander Wasinger, Sebby Richards, Moses Pyle, Danny Benjamin, Owen Goobic, and more. They ultimately dropped a close one, but the focus all afternoon was on getting boys out there, trying different positions, and facing some live pitching from another camp.

On Saturday we had one of our few Saturdays with a normal activity schedule, so the boys enjoyed a bonus day of their Week 4 activities, providing extra chances for all sorts of favorites like waterskiing, archery, sailing, wood shop, and so many others. Saturday even held our weekly Campfire, and we had another slate of fantastic acts. Cairo Clapper played Mess Hall favorite The Whiffenpoof Song on his trombone and invited us all to sing along. Cairo kept the trombone out to provide the womp-womp sound effects as Wills Waitzkin told a series of perfectly cringey dad jokes. Will Drummond continued his strong run of second session guitar performances, again with counselor Gavin Solomon this week, playing and singing ZZ Top’s Sharp Dressed Man. While I typically focus on the camper acts in these recaps, we had a phenomenal counselor performance that bears mentioning. Finn Cashman and Colin Ross performed an American classic with an energetic, indignant, and exasperated rendition of Abbott and Costello’s “Who’s on First?” While there were certainly many boys in the audience hearing it for the first time, I was heartened by the number of boys who were already familiar with it. Throughout all the performances, we were treated to a beautiful sunset and views down Lower Baker Pond.

After such a busy (albeit normal) week, the boys and staff alike were excited to take advantage of a sleep-in Sunday with breakfast served from 8:30-9:30 for those who’d like it and Reveille not blown until 9:30. Our slower paced Sunday mornings once again include the traditional Pemi soap baths, back after a couple years’ hiatus. Cabin groups go down to Junior or Senior Beach, each boy completes a quick check-in with a member of the health center staff, and then they use biodegradable soap for a quick rinse in the lake. Many Pemi alumni of a certain vintage will remember this as their only method of getting clean all summer, as it was many decades before Pemi’s first shower house was built.

Sunday afternoon a group of boys headed over to the Warren-Wentworth Food Pantry to drop off our second session Cans From Campers donations. A heartfelt thank you once again to everyone who participated in this vital food drive during either of our drop-off days. These donations truly make such a difference in our local community, and we’re so grateful for the generosity of the Pemi family in aiding this effort. The boys who went over to deliver goods and stock shelves were Hibbard Brown, Parker Brown, Harrison Charlebois, George Kingdon, Jacob Modzelewski, Noah Laas-Drysdale, and Rafe Romine. As usual they were led by Dottie Reed, the mastermind behind the Cans From Campers initiative that continues to grow around the nation every summer.

On Sunday evening I gave the Sunday Meeting talk on our summer theme of integrity, interwoven with an historical look at Tecumseh Day and the ways in which sports can prepare us for living a life of integrity. I was privileged to have a number of campers helping me out. 15-year-olds Graeme Newman, Charlie Toomey, Kai Karsan, Tom Mele, and Zach Pierson shared selections from the Pemi 100 history book and lessons on life from legendary UCLA basketball coach John Wooden. The boys spoke with poise and clarity, standing up confidently in front of their peers to deliver their words. The whole community appreciated their thoughtful effort, and I hope their peers were inspired by their leadership. Jacob Modzelewski and Nick McCay also contributed by providing the musical prelude and interlude on piano and saxophone respectively, demonstrating immense talent while sharing their gifts with all of us.

On Monday we were right back into it with our Week 5 activities. While sign-ups skew a bit more heavily towards sports this week – in particular baseball, soccer, tennis and swimming, the four sports we’ll play against Tecumseh on Friday – it’s still a full slate of all our usual offerings. We had dueling day-hikes head out yesterday, with a group of younger boys – Hibbard Brown, Logan Ramsey, Yaseen Usman, Gavin Solomon, Will Wasnick, Henry Beals, Landon Dow, and Charles Golay – summiting Mt. Pemigewassett, while a set of older campers – Mason Russell, Sawyer Brez, Charlie Toomey, Trip McNulty, Kaz Sulski, Dani Losada, Manolo Sevillano Luque, and Alvaro Rodriguez Samaniego – went up Mt. Tecumseh.

Monday night also included our second ladling of Bean Soup for the second session. Like the AMC hut trips, our veteran readers have heard about Bean Soup already, but a primer for those who haven’t: A unique bit of the Pemi experience dating back to 1910, Bean Soup blends together a newspaper, SportsCenter, and Saturday Night Live’s Weekend Update to create a record of each Pemi summer. Campers and staff write articles about games, trips, and special events, while the Bean Soup editors write a version of the week’s events that gets us laughing uncontrollably and that, every now and then, contains more than just a hint of truthiness. This year’s editors are Nolan Katcher, Owen Gagnon, and Henry Moore, and they continue to delight and humble us all summer long.

We also received word from Montana on Monday that our Pemi West group had successfully completed the river portion of their expedition and were in the process of transitioning to backpacking in the Tobacco Roots Mountains. The report from the field stated that highlights thus far included a visit to the Museum of the Rockies in Bozeman before setting out, hiking and swimming up Hyalite Canyon, beautiful but hot paddling days on the Upper Missouri River Breaks, fishing along the way, lessons on Montana’s Indigenous Peoples, the history of the Lewis and Clark expedition along that same stretch of river, work on community building and backcountry cooking, and some relatively unsuccessful attempts at beard growing. We can’t wait to welcome those boys back to Pemi next week and hear all about their experience!

Here at camp today, we had another duo of hikes go out and have several afternoon sporting events taking place. The hikes were to Black Mountain (Henry Beals, Luca Bonanno, Flynn Baggish, and Jacob Modzelewski) and the Welch-Dickey Loop (Juan Cediel, Nicholas Brown, Cairo Clapper, Isaac Flecker, and Jaeden Lopes), while the games are 10s soccer, 12s baseball, and 13s soccer this afternoon and 15s soccer after dinner this evening. It’s another full day in the midst of another full week at Pemi. Check back next week for a recap of Friday’s events and all the other goings-on here at camp!

– Pat