We may have something in Tahoe.

I think that’s more of a research facility. I don’t believe they have a hospitality component to it. We should have something like that though IMHO.

Was it Bruinwoods at Lake Arrowhead? (https://bruinwoods.ucla.edu )

Bruinwoods is, or was, an alumni family camp run by some component of UCLA, very much like The Lair of the Golden Bear (usually just called The Lair of the Bear, or The Lair,) operated by the California Alumni Association and located near Pinecrest Lake off of Highway 108 east of Sonora. (https://alumni.berkeley.edu/camp-at-the-lair/# )

My family and I attended the Lair several years ago when our kids were very young. At that time someone in the group had to be a member of some alumni association from any of the UC campuses. They now require that at least one camper be a member of the California Alumni Association. It's a pretty funky little place. Aging canvas covers over aging wooden structures. We enjoyed it, though as a friend commented, "Do you notice that by about Wednesday the wives are ready to go home?"

Lair actaully has three camps on the same property: Gold, Blue and Oski. At one time there was an effort to have a couple of weeks where the powers that be encouraged Davis alumni. Not sure that ever took off. However one of my now adult chidlren and I have returned in the last ferw years. There are campers from several UC campuses as well as those who graduated from non-UC schools.

Undaunted I head up with a weeks worth of UCD t-shirts, a UCD flag to attach to the "cabin." and now a sign that reads "Lair of the Mare."

Go Ags!

Bruinwoods got in some trouble a few years ago over allegations of sexual harassment. I think they even shut down for one season. The camps are staffed for the most part by college students hired for summer employment.

we almost had something like that. The Cal Aggie Alumni Association purchased a 200 acre property in Tahoe in 2013 with the intent of building an Aggie family lodge, campground, conference facility. They spent a couple million on design but the bond market went south and there was a dispute with the neighbor regarding the access road easement so it was never built, sold at a big loss in 2019. Things were kind of hush-hush, but the senior leadership of CAAA was removed around that time and I think this had something to do with it. Around that time the strategic direction of the alumni association changed that the new leadership wanted to move away from social events just for fun to focus on continuing education, career development, and DEI.

OMG

"Lair of the Mare." — 72Aggie

lol

I went to Lair as a kid. Great times. Blue and Gold were there when I was a kid, Oski was added around 2000.

I really wish Davis had a place like this. The Lair is one of the coolest things about being a Berkeley Alum (according to my old man. I agree).

I feel things like Lair of the Bear and whatever Stanford has (at Tahoe Fallen Leaf Lake) set their alumni experience far apart from ours. There is more family engagement through the years.

Never knew about this. What could have been........

for sure. I believe the property was on Crystal Lake in Emigrant Gap. I think Scott Judson was on the board of directors at the time. I guess you could call to get the scoop… and save $500 on your estate plan!

al this sounds like a dream site. I would have definitely gone. Who killed it?

I am not sure who. I just know that CAAA had some sort of leadership crisis around 2019. I got the sense that the books weren’t straight but idk in what way. And the new leadership had new priorities. For example, their pitch to the alumni band was we don’t want you to play at homecoming because that’s too social and too much injury liability but do you think the members would come to a speaker series about the intersectionality of race and pronouns in musicianship? Uh yeah, no thanks.

Is your band story serious?

yes, but it’s complicated. In general, the new direction was that there shouldn’t be any interaction between alumni and students, and that alumni events needed to be primarily educational, career-development or fundraising in nature and that you couldn’t have events for the purpose of socializing. While there were certainly some at CAAA trying to be helpful, It was peak “me too” era and that glass of kool-aid was going around, so this was a suggested topic for a covid era zoom. In a nutshell, there is no HR-type structure to handle “I’m offended” incidents between alumni or students and alumni so the easy answer was cancel anything where somebody might get offended. And it was unclear liability not just if an alumni band member got injured but also what if a spectator claimed injury. So back to the original topic, if risk management felt a bunch of middle age folks in jeans playing Aggie Fight was too dangerous, I could certainly see their sphincters clench at the idea of an overnight camp.