PAST, PRESENT & FUTURE

Other than a return to normalcy, which was interrupted by the pandemic last year, this is an historic year at Pyramid Life Center.

This year marks the 75th anniversary of the Diocese of Albany purchasing the 750-acre property in the Adirondacks which would become Marian Lodge. It is also the 35th anniversary of Sister Monica Murphy, CSJ, Father Bob Roos and Father Paul Engel starting Pyramid Life Center.

“I am excited about the lifting of some of the restrictions. We should be able to have closer to a typical season than what we had last year,” said Brian Evers, director of Pyramid Life Center and associate director for Safe Environment in the Diocese of Albany.

While celebrating its past, Pyramid Life Center continues to expand toward the future. Last year, PLC purchased a 261⁄2 acre property right next door — which used to be called Chipmunk Camp — from a private family. The newly-renovated Chipmunk Camp has a main house that is ready to go this year and the potential for 11 cabins on the grounds. More recently, PLC is under contract to purchase The Priory in Chestertown, which was previously owned by a private Catholic organization. It has 12 rooms and sits on 100 acres of land.

While PLC has been hosting confirmations and Catholic schools this year, the season really begins on “Opening Weekend” on Memorial Day weekend, when volunteers, 60 at most recent count, get the place ready for the summer.

“We go from (last Friday) until the beginning of (Camp) Breakaway (in June) and, right now, we only have two days where we don’t have a group here,” Evers said.

And with updated and shifting COVID guidance, it will feel even more like a normal camp.

“The main difference in the dining hall is we can have the staff serve a buffet and groups that normally cook for each other, like parish groups, if they’re the only group here, they can cook for themselves. So that is more typical,” Evers said.

There will still be a heavy emphasis, however, on keeping things clean: “You don’t want too many touches on things (but) we can do a buffet behind glass and serve people,” Evers said. “And we are probably going to require folks, vaccinated and unvaccinated, to wear masks in the dining hall because if you don’t do that you have to have separate sections.”

There are no occupancy limits though for people who are vaccinated, while unvaccinated people should try to maintain a social distance of six feet apart but Evers said, “we are not trying to be policemen, we are going to trust people.”

Some of the highlights include:

The return of the recovery retreats: “One of the nice things that we have done over the years, is we have had several recovery programs, and we added one the first weekend in June (with Diane Cameron, a columnist for the Times Union). She is doing a retreat called ‘Out of the Woods’ which is for women in recovery and is based on her book ‘Out of the Woods.’ ”

Camp Breakaway: Always one of the highlights, the camp for those in middle school and high school, will feature ‘The Doug and Dave Show’’ on the first night. The duo is renowned as storytellers, musicians and stewards of the faith.

Young adult retreat: The weekend titled “Renew and Refresh” came about after “a group of young people that worked a confirmation retreat who had never been here before and that spurred them to say we should do something just for us up here,” Evers said. Part of the cost of the weekend is also being underwritten by the Diocese.

For a complete list of programs this summer, head to www.pyramidlife.org/programs.