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2022 Retreats at Camp DeSoto

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Family Camp and Women’s Weekends are some of our favorite weekends of the year, and we’re excited to announce the dates for our weekend retreats in 2022! We’ve made some changes to our schedule this season, so let us tell you a little bit more about it.

Family Camp will be Memorial Day weekend, May 27-29, 2022.

You read that correctly - it will not be held over Labor Day weekend this year. Instead, we are going to kick off the summer season with a weekend for Families at the end of May!

Family Camp

May 27-29, 2022

Sounds Fun!

Then, we’ll close out the summer season with a Women’s Weekend August 5-7, 2022.

By inviting women to Camp the weekend after Second Term ends, we’ll be able to give you a real taste of summer at DeSoto!

Women's Weekend

August 5-7, 2022

Tell Me More

We’re looking forward to trying a new rhythm this season and bookending our summer sessions with these weekend camps.

The people who come to retreats at Camp are the ones who make them what they are! We are certainly mindful of you when we make a big change at Camp. You may have a few questions, and we want to let you know more about the thought behind these changes.

How much does it cost? How do we sign up?

You can follow the links above or check out the “Retreats” section of our website to find out more details about each weekend (including the cost) and to access the online registration form. If you have any questions, please call our camp office. We’d be happy to help!

Why is Family Camp Memorial Day weekend instead of Labor Day weekend?

We want as many families to be able to come as possible, and we want to give them the best of Camp! It seems like we may be able to offer an even better experience over Memorial Day weekend.

College staff will be out of school and more of them will be available to lead activities and create Camp fun, and families will be kicking off their summer plans rather than transitioning into fall sports and obligations. Plus, we think everyone should have the opportunity to experience Little River and Lookout Mountain at their peak springtime beauty in late May!

It also helps that our Camp infrastructure will already be in place for the summer season. When we have Family Camp at the beginning of September, we are re-opening and revving up parts of Camp that were closed down at the end of Second Term. It feels better all around to invite families into Camp as we are freshly opened up and ready to go for the summer ahead.

Why is the Women’s Weekend no longer in September?

For those of you who have been saving a weekend in September for many years, this will be an adjustment. By having a weekend camp for women right after second term ends, you will get to enjoy camp in all it’s summer glory. (Some of you probably even stayed at Camp through mid-August when you were a camper!) It also will be easier on our end to simply keep camp running for a few days beyond Second Term, rather than closing things up only to re-open a month later. We can give you a weekend that feels more like the best of DeSoto this way. When we decided to move Family Camp to Memorial Day weekend, it made sense to also bookend camp at the end of the summer season with a final hurrah - Women’s Weekend!

Will you be having a Mother-Daughter weekend this year?

Not this year. Mother-daughter pairs are more than welcome to come to Family Camp over Memorial Day weekend - you can get a crew together and share a cabin with others moms and their daughters if you’d like. And camper in kindergarten or above is welcome, whether your daughter currently camps or is considering camping soon!

We recognize that this is not a perfect replacement option for everyone, especially First Term campers who will be coming to DeSoto for a month so soon after that weekend, but for some it may provide an alternative way to get to Camp with your mom/daughter. For now, we recognized we can best serve our Camp community through summer sessions, Family Camp, and the Women’s Weekend, and that is where we are focusing our energies for the 2022 camping season.

It is so much fun to share camp with people at all ages and stages of life.
We hope you will join us for a weekend at Camp in 2022!

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Sarah Hurt

About Sarah Hurt

Sarah Hurt is the Director of Camp DeSoto. She grew up playing in the woods of Lookout Mountain, swimming in Little River, and spending her summers as a DeSoto camper. She loves good stories, twinkle lights, her dog Riley, and Camp DeSoto girls most of all.

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