The Vista Way

Over the last offseason, as we prepared for the Summer of 2026, we saw a whole lot of things around Vista that were pretty special.

We saw people show up to help, sometimes before we even knew we needed them. We had alumni and camp families call just to check on us and ask what they could do. We received letters and notes from campers wishing us well and telling us how excited they were to come home to Vista. We watched people give their time, their resources and, in plenty of cases, just a little encouragement at exactly the right time.

After everything Vista had been through, you couldn’t help but notice it.

There was a feeling behind all of it that was hard to put into words. It was more than people simply being nice or helpful. There was something about the way this place makes people care for one another. Something that makes you want to show up. To help. To encourage. To give a little more of yourself. And maybe most importantly, to treat the next person the same way someone here once treated you.

We kept seeing it over and over again.

And somewhere along the way, we finally found a name for it.

The Vista Way.

The funny thing is, while the name may only be a few months old, The Vista Way isn’t new at all.

It’s been here forever.

It was here long before any of us currently walking around camp arrived, and hopefully it’ll be here long after we’re gone. It’s been passed from counselor to camper, from older camper to younger camper, from one generation of Vista families to the next for more than a hundred years.

We just finally figured out what to call it.

And even now, if you ask me to give you a perfect definition of The Vista Way, I’m not sure I can.

Sportsmanship? Sure, that’s part of it.

Being a good friend? Absolutely.

Doing the right thing when nobody is watching? Definitely.

Leadership, kindness, toughness, humility, service? Yep, all of those too.

But none of them quite get there.

Maybe the best way to explain The Vista Way is pretty simple:

You know it when you see it.

And if you spend enough time at Vista, you see it all the time.

It’s the kid who finishes a race and turns around to cheer on the guy behind him.

It’s a Sioux and a Golden Arrow going at each other with everything they’ve got during a tribe competition, only to be sitting beside each other at lunch 20 minutes later laughing about something that probably makes absolutely no sense to any adult within earshot.

It’s an older camper noticing that one of our little guys is having a rough day and putting an arm around him.

It’s picking up trash that isn’t yours.

It’s saying thank you.

It’s looking someone in the eye when you shake their hand.

It’s losing something you REALLY wanted to win and still walking over to congratulate the other side.

Sometimes it’s as simple as scooting over on a bench because somebody needs a place to sit.

None of those things sound particularly remarkable.

But put them all together, summer after summer, and they become something pretty special.

Summers Add Up

One of my favorite things about Vista is watching the relationship between our younger and older campers.

When you’re six or seven years old, the older campers at Vista might as well be professional athletes. The Flaming Arrows are giants. Your tribe leaders are celebrities. Your Chief? He’s about as big a deal as there is.

And those little guys are ALWAYS watching.

They’re watching how the older boys compete. How they treat their friends. How they handle losing. How much they care about their tribe. They notice the older camper who stops to talk to them, remembers their name, or gives them a high five on the way to breakfast.

The really cool part is that they remember it.

We have counselors on staff today who can still tell you exactly who their Chiefs were when they were campers.

“That was my first Chief.”

“He was my Chief my Elephant year.”

Years later, they still remember the names.

I think that’s pretty incredible.

Because I doubt most of those Chiefs had any idea at the time just how closely they were being watched. They were teenagers themselves, enjoying their last few summers as campers, probably worried about winning the next tribe competition or what was for dinner that night.

Meanwhile, some little Pioneer was watching everything they did.

Then summers start adding up.

That little Pioneer comes back the next summer. And the next one. Eventually he’s not so little anymore. Maybe he becomes a Flaming Arrow. Maybe he becomes an officer. Maybe one day he’s lucky enough to become a Chief himself.

And suddenly there’s another six-year-old watching him.

Eventually, some of those campers come back wearing a counselor shirt. Now they’re the ones leading cabins, teaching classes and helping the next group of kids figure out this place.

And if you ask them about their own camper days, they can still tell you the names of the guys they looked up to.

There’s something really special about that.

For more than a hundred years, The Vista Way has been passed down like that. Older campers showing younger campers how we do things here, usually without ever realizing they’re doing it.

Someone did it for you.

For a little while, you get to be that person for somebody else.

And if we’re lucky, years from now, that kid might still remember your name.

We Still Really Like to Win

I should probably clarify something here.

The Vista Way does NOT mean that we don’t care who wins.

We care.

A lot.

Maybe an unreasonable amount at times.

We want the Sioux to want to beat the Golden Arrows. We want the Golden Arrows to want to beat the Sioux. We want War Canoe paddlers falling out of the boat exhausted after they cross the finish line. We want kids nervous before Sing/Yell. We want them diving for loose balls, sprinting through the finish and giving everything they have for the people standing beside them.

Competition is a big part of Vista, and I hope it always will be.

There are some great lessons that come from winning.

There might be even better ones that come from losing.

Can you give everything you’ve got and still shake the other guy’s hand?

Can you be disappointed without making excuses?

Can you win without making the other side feel small?

Can you lose something that meant the world to you, be upset about it for a little while, and then wake up the next morning ready to go again?

Those aren’t just camp lessons.

Those are life lessons.

And that’s The Vista Way.

The Stuff You Don’t See

Parents get thousands of pictures from us every summer.

And somehow, we still miss most of the good stuff.

There’s usually not a photographer around when an older camper sits down next to a younger one who’s missing home.

Nobody gets a picture of the cabinmate who notices somebody having a bad day and manages to make him laugh.

There’s no award handed out for noticing something needs to be cleaned up and just taking care of it.

Most parents will never know about the counselor who stayed up a little later talking to their son because he needed someone to listen.

Those aren’t the moments campers are usually talking about when they pile into the car on Closing Day, either.

You’re going to hear about the Blob.

You’re DEFINITELY going to hear about the food.

You’ll hear who won Superthon, who got launched the highest off the water mat, what happened during Counselor Hunt and approximately 47 inside jokes that they’ll attempt to explain to you before eventually saying, “Never mind, you had to be there.”

But underneath all of that, something else has been happening.

They’re growing up.

Just a little bit.

They’re learning how to live with other people. How to be a friend. How to handle disappointment. How to take care of themselves. How to take care of somebody else.

And hopefully they’re learning that being a good man has a whole lot more to do with what you do than what you say.

Then They Take It Home

This is probably the most important part.

The Vista Way isn’t supposed to stay at Vista.

Eventually the trunks get packed. Somehow half the socks disappear. A wet towel gets buried somewhere it absolutely should not be. There are hugs, a few tears, and cars start pulling out of the gates.

Then camp gets quiet.

I hate that part.

But all of those campers head back to their real lives.

Back to school. Back to sports teams. Back to families and friends.

And that’s where we hope The Vista Way really matters.

When there’s a new kid at school who doesn’t have anyone to sit with.

When the referee makes a terrible call.

When a teammate makes a mistake.

When somebody needs help.

When doing the right thing is inconvenient.

When nobody is watching.

That’s when we hope a little bit of Vista shows up.

We don’t expect our campers to be perfect. They’re kids. They’re going to mess up. They’re going to lose their tempers, make bad decisions and occasionally do things that make every adult around them wonder what on earth they were thinking.

That’s part of growing up too.

But hopefully all these summers give them something to come back to.

A standard.

A feeling.

A little voice somewhere in the back of their head that says, That’s not how we do things.

Or maybe even better:

You know what to do.

I’ve been around Vista for a lot of summers, and I still don’t think I can give you the perfect definition of The Vista Way.

Maybe we’re not supposed to be able to.

But I know it when I see it.

I see it in our campers.

I see it in our counselors.

I see it in the young man who was once the homesick little boy being the one who now puts his arm around somebody else.

And every time I see it, I think the same thing…