The Kids Will Have a Ball At Summer Camp Vail
|
|
The Best...Summer Camp Vail
Did you ever go to summer camp when you were a kid? Do you remember the Hello
Muddah, Hello Faddah song, the one about the poor kid stuck at Camp Grenada? It
rained all the time, the poison ivy was thick, the adults didn’t get along with each other,
and all sorts of problems happened at Camp Grenada.
The summer camps available in the Vail, Colorado area are nothing
like Camp Grenada.
For one thing, it hardly ever rains for very long in the Colorado mountains. The area
averages over 300 sunny days a year, and the rain that does fall tends to be in the form of
afternoon thunder-boomers, just enough to keep native plants going and the air freshened.
Poison ivy is nearly unheard of, because most of the mountains are too dry and too high
for it to grow. Partly as a result of very little being bad in a Vail area summer camp, the
adults do get along together.
The Learning Camp specializes in children with learning
disabilities,
including ADHD
and can take up to 160 campers per summer. The idea is to give
children practice in basic reading, writing and math, while building the qualities of
independence and self-esteem in a fun mountain environment. The camp has 35 acres of
land with a private pond and hiking trails. Horses are also kept at the camp, a great way
of traveling in the Rockies – safer than dirt motorcycles and less tiring than backpacking.
Children attend The Learning Camp in two-week, three-week or multiple sessions that
run from June through August. The staff member to camper ratio is kept at 1:3, and most
of the staff members are education professionals (counselors and teachers).
The ages of the children run from seven to fourteen, and The Learning Camp has no
particular religious affiliation. Your child can expect a lot of activities that make summer
camp fun: arts and crafts, baseball, basketball, canoeing, caving, fishing, hiking,
horseback riding, kayaking, rock climbing, soccer, and the ever-present talent show. Plus
at this camp, your child will learn academic subjects. The Three R’s have been
mentioned, but other studies include history, science and languages.
For the older crowd (16-19 years old) The Leading Edge
offers
early leadership training and mountain outdoors challenges for your teenager who might
someday be elected the leader of the free world, President of the United States – or
maybe just a CEO of a Fortune 500 company, or maybe the level of five-star general –
some kind of leader. However that works out, The Leading Edge emphasizes fitness as
well as leadership training through various adventure activities having to do with:
backpacking, environment, hiking, mountaineering, orienteering (navigation), and
wilderness.
The core part of The Leading Edge program
consists of nine days in the wilderness
where your child will practice leadership, receive feedback and the opportunity to
improve, hike on and off trails, and climb a 14,000 foot mountain. Don’t get
overprotective though, climbing “fourteeners” isn’t as hard as it sounds, and with the
expert staff of The Leading Edge, your child will never be without proper support.
Colorado has other summer camps scattered throughout the state. A good place to learn
about them is www.mysummercamps.com, which covers summer camps outside
Colorado as well.
Oh, I wish I had gone to Colorado summer camps when I was a kid. But no, mine were a
lot like Camp Grenada – sort of fun, but not spectacular and life-changing like those in
Colorado.
|
|
|
