Your Group
Co-ed and grouped according to age, your group will consist of 10 to 15 students with 2 to 3 adult male and female leaders respectively. This allows us to maintain our low student-to-staff ratio at all times.
Your First Day
You will be met at the airport by your Wilderness Ventures leaders, where your gear will be checked to be sure you have all the essentials you will need for your teen summer camp expedition. As soon as all group members have arrived, we will proceed to our nearby campsite where we will begin getting acquainted with each other. After sharing our first evening meal together, your leaders will introduce you to various outdoor skills you'll need for your first teen summer camp activity, including how to put up your tent, how to pack your backpack, and how to operate our lightweight, backcountry stoves.
Your Backcountry Experience
The following morning, you'll depart on the first wilderness experience of your teen summer camp. Since most of your trip mates will be inexperienced, we'll start with low daily mileage and gradually pick up the pace to longer daily mileage as we become stronger and more accustomed to backpacking. We will generally hike between 4 and 10 miles per day (depending upon the expedition and terrain). Your teen summer camp experience will likely involve 2 to 4 different backpacking trips ranging from 4 to 12 days depending upon your expedition. It will likely include other multi-day wilderness activities such as whitewater rafting, sea kayaking, rock climbing, canoeing, mountaineering, or mountain biking.
What You'll Eat
One of your favorite parts of your teen summer camp will be purchasing, preparing, and eating our group meals together as a community. Our meals are always plentiful and nutritious, but reflect the limitations of outdoor teen summer camp cooking and our trip mates' preparation skills. Preparing group meals makes it impossible to provide separate meals for vegetarians, students with food allergies, vegans, or students with other eating restrictions. Vegetarians can expect to eat the same group meals, but can have the meat portion withheld. Students with food allergies should assess how their particular allergies might limit their meals. It is impossible for us to accommodate a vegan or kosher diet on our teen summer camps.
Your Gear
We will provide all group equipment necessary for your teen summer camp including tents, stoves, cooking gear, and first aid equipment. We also furnish all specialized gear for activities such as bicycling, rafting, canoeing, kayaking, and climbing.
We'll send you a clothing and equipment list after you've been accepted, which will describe types of sleeping bags, backpacks, hiking boots, raingear, and other personal clothing items that you will need to bring. An exciting part of a Wilderness Ventures teen summer camp is the fun you will have putting the personal gear together prior to your trip. We also offer a gear rental program for most of our domestic teen summer programs.
How You'll Travel
Most of our adventures will utilize comfortable 15-passenger vans to transport you between activity destinations. All of our leaders are trained to safely drive these vehicles before your summer begins. Because we hold so many different and wonderful wilderness permits, we have the luxury of being able to cluster our teen summer program activities and minimize travel time between these areas. We know of no other teen summer camp which can offer such diversity of activities with so little travel time. Sometimes we'll use ferry boats to quickly move our group to remote islands, and if distances are a bit far, we'll travel by bush planes or sometimes by jet aircraft. Regardless of how we travel, only 5 percent of your time will be spent moving from one area to another; 95 percent of your time on our teen summer camps will be spent involved in our activities.
When we do travel, we'll take advantage of worthwhile scenic, cultural, or historical sites, and we always take advantage of spontaneous and unplanned opportunities as they arise. This could mean time out for a swim in a roadside lake or stream, a plunge in an inviting hot spring, or a stop for an hour or so in a tourist town to buy souvenirs or ice cream. Stops are also planned for showers, laundry, and sending trip updates to your family.
Our leaders are all knowledgeable of the areas we travel through and there are frequent informal discussions dealing with each area's particular history, economy, and geography. Each teen summer camp also carries a mobile library. Our evening programs are always fun and informative as we share Indian legends, sing, and play the instruments we have brought with us.
How You'll Communicate
Between activity destinations, your trip leaders will send trip updates to your family.
How Your Safety Will Be Managed
Safety is a central focus of every teen summer camp, and we are proud that our impeccable safety record is unmatched. After 37 years, with over 20,000 students, we have never experienced a serious injury. This record is the result of our strict staff selection process, our thorough pre-summer training, our highly detailed procedures for conducting safe activities as well as our very low student-to-staff ratios.
In the unlikely event that a student becomes sick or injured while in the backcountry, we can usually treat the majority of ailments. In addition to their many other qualifications, all our staff members are fully trained in first aid and emergency evacuation procedures. Most of our staff have over 120 hours of wilderness first aid training, and many are emergency medical technicians. While extensive formal first aid training is helpful, it can never take the place of highly experienced and trained teen summer camp leaders who make appropriate and safe decisions. Our carefully selected staff members, and our high standards are responsible for our enviable safety record which exceeds that of all other teen summer camps and outdoor leadership schools. No one has had more experience conducting safe outdoor expeditions than Wilderness Ventures.
How You'll Sleep
Every night of your domestic teen summer camp will be spent sleeping outside along a mountain stream or lake, on a coastal beach, or by a whitewater river. We provide lightweight tents for all our students. We assign tents by gender and you will always have the opportunity to sleep out under the stars. International teen summer camps are a combination of camping and small hostels.
What We Expect From You
We expect you to carefully read this teen summer camp catalog so you understand Wilderness Ventures fully. Our teen summer adventures are of varying lengths and challenges, so you will need to select the expedition most appropriate for you. If you can't make up your mind, we'll be happy to help you make your decision for that perfect summer experience.
We expect you to come on your trip both mentally and physically prepared. For preparation, we strongly suggest you schedule an exercise program of jogging, bicycling, or swimming. How much you enjoy your teen summer camp will be directly related to how well-conditioned you are.
Lastly, we expect you to arrive with an enthusiastic and positive attitude. You must be prepared to share and contribute to your fellow trip mates unselfishly, be excited about participating in all your group teen summer camp activities, and be ready to make great new friends. The most important aspect of a Wilderness Ventures teen summer camp is the group experience. We have wonderful group experiences because we have students who come prepared to put their own personal needs behind those of their group. If you come with this same attitude, you will likely have the finest summer of your life.
