Capture the Flag

Capture the flag is a classic activity at Birch Rock and is a favorite among campers and counselors alike. It is played as an evening activity on the field, as a Sunday activity in the form of cross camp, or sometimes on the field when some people need to kill time. The field version and the cross camp version have slight differences beyond the difference in location.

On the field

To play capture the flag on the field the camp separates into two teams, skins and pennies for example. Everyone tucks his shirt into the back of his shorts as a tail that can be pulled out to catch him. The two teams then go to their respective sides of the field. The playing field consists of the two team's sides, a small neutral zone in between them, a flag at the bottom of each team's side, and a jail near each flag's starting point. As a player you can choose to either defend your side or attack the other side. As an attacker you try to either capture the flag and bring it back to the neutral zone to win, free the the people in jail by touching it, or try to distract the people on the other side so people on your team can do the first two things. As a defender you pretty much try to prevent what the attackers are trying to do by pulling out their tails when they cross into your territory. Once you pull out an enemy's tail he has to go to jail and wait for some one to come and free him. If some one grabs the flag but only runs it half way back to no man's land then the flag is planted where that person was caught and the game goes on. At the end of each game the teams switch sides.

Cross camp

Cross camp capture the flag is like capture the flag on the field but it is played using upper and lower camp as the team's sides. The driveway is used as no man's land. Another difference is that players do not use tails but instead have to touch and enemy with both hands and say caught, caught, caught to make him go to jail. The different location adds some new dimensions to the game like the ability for players to sneak up on the flag or jail and the fact that it is played on a hill which lets players run faster but sometimes slower when they have to go up hill.