Snow Camp 2016

Every year (for the past several years) we’ve chaperoned our kids and several others from our church to a youth camp/ meeting up at Mount Charleston, outside of Las Vegas. It’s a three day retreat up in the mountains and is sponsored by the local Las Vegas church we’re affiliated with. They put on an outstanding camp. The kids have a great time and always look forward to the next year.

As we drove up the mountain this year, we noticed the snow level was way down from years past. The mountain looked pretty much barren of snow, except at elevations higher than the campground. That was on Thursday. On Friday everything changed. A terrific winter storm moved through the area and blanketed the mountain. We got the snow we were looking for…… over six inches of it.

The camp is at about 8000′ above sea level. We live at sea level. Going from one location to the other can pose some challenges. The camp is not on flat ground. You have to climb up from one side of the camp to the other. In years past I have definitely felt the effects of the higher altitude, typically throughout the three days. This mainly consisted of headaches and shortness of breath. This year I noticed an improvement. By the second day I was feeling a lot better than at the same point last year. Very minor headache one day and actually running up that hill at times.

A little background:
I am the song leader at our local church. This entails leading the congregation in songs and worship at the beginning of each service. Song service can get very lively sometimes. It can typically last for 15 minutes to a half hour, sometimes even longer. It takes a lot of energy to get through sometimes. In the last couple of years, I had been noticing that my endurance during these services was starting to drop off. I’d get out of breath a lot quicker than in the past (I’ve been leading song service for over 20 years). Since starting our workouts on the ROM Machine I’ve been noticing some improvement but I couldn’t really “confirm” this beyond a doubt. Like I said, these services vary in length and intensity.

That brings me back to Snow Camp. I’ve been asked for the last four years to lead song service for at least one service of the camp (there are five services total each year). Again, this is at over 8000′ and we’re coming from sea level. Every year it just about kills me (well, that’s how I’ve felt, anyway). I remember from last year how upbeat the service was and how lethargic I felt trying to get through leading songs. It wasn’t a good feeling.

Things were a lot different this year. Yes, I got out of breath at times. But that was to be expected…. the song service lasted for more than an hour. And that was on Saturday night. I had also led the service the night before (which also lasted longer than usual). This was the first time I had ever led two services of the camp. And I felt a lot better than last year after only one service. My increased endurance at that high altitude has made a believer out of me; the ROM workouts were helping me tremendously.

I’m amazed at how little time these improvements have taken. We’ve only been doing the ROM workouts since November of last year (and we’ve missed a lot of our these workouts due to vacations/ travel, etc….). I am getting exactly the type of results I was looking for….. I am feeling better. And I can’t wait for next years Snow Camp.

To Good Health