We strongly believe in the value of having all of our counselors here for all sessions for several reasons. First, it allows all of the staff to come in at the same time and go through staff training together. Staff training is a great time of teaching where we bring in some outstanding and talented speakers, but it is also an incredible time of bonding and much comraderie is formed between staff members. By the end of the week many guys who have just met for the first time remark that they feel like they have known each other for years. We want everyone to be here together when we are building this team, and we want them to feel like they are all in this job together, co-equal laborers for the summer.
Secondly, we feel like the whole summer is crucial for the individual growth of each counselor. Like any service work any of us ever do, the servant always gets as much if not more from the service as the one being served. This is definitely the case with counselors at Alpine. It is a huge growth opportunity for staff. We feel like guys could probably do this job for a month or even 6 weeks and walk away a little tired but not really changed or affected dramatically. It is during the course of an entire summer that we have seen the Lord work in all of our hearts and minds and attitudes year in and year out. It is when you are tired or frustrated and feel like you don’t have any more to give that you learn to depend on the strength that only the Lord can give. And it is this tremendous stretching of our faith that allows us to leave here absolutely worn out and at the same time knowing that we will never be the same because of what we learned about ourselves over the course of an entire summer.
All of our counselors come to camp for the entire length of our summer sessions. Usually staff training starts sometime in the last two weeks of May. Some specialized activities like Horseback, Project Adventure, Climbing, Waterfront, Riflery, and Archery (and sometimes others) come in 4 to 7 days early for activity certifications. We have two consecutive terms of 26 days each, then a Junior Camp session for 11 days. Junior Camp usually ends around the first week in August. Most counselors find that they have several weeks on either end of their school semesters for traveling and being with family.
Alpine counselors come from all over the place. We welcome applications from schools all over the United States and the world. We have had counselors from Australia, South Africa, Sweden, and several other foreign countries. That being said, the vast majority of our staff come from schools in the Southeast. Mississippi State, Tennessee, Ole Miss, Vanderbilt, Georgia, Alabama, Auburn, Virginia, Washington and Lee, Clemson, Furman, Davidson, North Carolina, and Wake Forest usually all draw counselors (in no particular order!) There are too many others to list all of the schools where we have had staff from at one time or another. It is always a blessing to see the Lord raise up a staff each summer and bring them together from all over the map.
Alpine Camp is a privately owned traditional Christian summer camp. We hire Christian young men who have a desire to have fun and take care of campers ages 7 to 16. All counselors must have at least satisfactorily completed their freshman year in college. Many guys have completed more than that when they come for the first time. And many counselors return for multiple summers while they are in college. Probably about a third to maybe half the staff grew up at Alpine as a camper. So usually a majority of the staff are coming to Alpine for the first time, based on the recommendation of a friend or campus minister. Each summer we hire about 75 guys to be counselors. 
Here is an excerpt from a letter we received in August of 2007. Very soon after leaving Alpine this counselor was headed to Germany for a year on a Fulbright Scholarship.
” In no time at all Alpine’s embrace felt familiar to me, and throughout the summer I felt simultaneously the thrill of being part of an exciting adventure and the comfort of being at home, where things were in their proper order. To grow such an environment, where one can experience this wonderful paradox of emotions, is a marvel. I praise God for what has been grown over the years at Alpine, for the ways he has convicted you and used you to His glory, for the impression Alpine has made on young men and boys, and for the extent that Alpine furthers His Kingdom. I am thankful to have been part of the Alpine adventure story.”
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