What is a wilderness camp? Survival and backcountry camps for kids

Overview

Wilderness camps spend time away from roads and buildings, in forests, mountains, deserts or lake country. The shape of that time differs from camp to camp. A program might keep a home base and head out on trips, travel for the whole session, or add trips to a traditional camp summer.

That shape affects which survival skills get taught, how far the group travels and how physical the days feel. Knowing it makes your child's summer easier to picture. It also helps you ask each camp about leaders, weather and gear in specific terms.

What is a wilderness camp?

A wilderness camp is a summer camp built around time in wild, remote country. Campers travel on foot, by canoe or by kayak, through forests, mountains, canyons or lake country. Along the way, staff teach them to cook, camp and look after each other.

Backcountry means land away from roads, buildings and cell service. Some wilderness camps spend almost the whole session there, moving from campsite to campsite. Others keep a home base with tents or cabins and head out on trips. Some traditional camps add wilderness trips to a summer of swimming, crafts and campfires.

All three take campers out into wild country. What changes is the shape of the days: where your child sleeps, how much gear the group carries and how long it stays out.

Wilderness camps overlap with adventure camps, which build their days around activities such as climbing, ropes courses and paddling. For that side, see what an adventure camp is.

What survival skills programs teach

Survival skills are the practical skills of living outdoors with what a group carries and what the land around it offers. Programs give them different names, but the skills themselves look familiar from camp to camp.

Shelter means pitching a tarp or tent well, and sometimes building a simple shelter from branches and leaves. Fire covers lighting, tending and putting out a small fire, where fires are allowed. Water covers finding it, carrying it and treating it before anyone drinks. Navigation means reading a map, using a compass and noticing landmarks along the way.

Around those sit the everyday skills of trail life: tying knots, cooking on a stove, reading the weather and packing a bag well. Campers also learn to leave a campsite the way they found it. Basic first aid and ways to signal for help often appear too, along with naming the plants and animals of the area.

Teaching is usually hands-on. Staff show a skill at camp and campers practice it in small groups. Then they use it on a trip, when the tarp has to keep off that night's rain.

Some programs also include a solo, a stretch of quiet time alone at a chosen spot. How long it lasts and how staff check in are details to ask about.

Terrain, remoteness and physical demands

Terrain sets the feel of each day. In the mountains, groups climb and descend rocky trails and sleep through cool nights. In forests and lake country, days can mean paddling across open water and carrying canoes between lakes. Desert and canyon trips bring heat, bright sun and careful planning around water.

Remoteness is about distance from roads, buildings and phone signal. On a trail far from a road, it is worth knowing who on the trip would respond to a twisted ankle or a sudden illness. How the group calls for help, and who at base keeps track of its route, are fair questions for any program.

Wilderness days are physical. Campers carry a pack with their own gear and a share of the group's food and equipment. They walk over roots and rocks, paddle into the wind, set up camp at the end of the day and sleep on the ground. Rain, heat, cold and bugs are part of trip life.

If your child has an allergy or another health condition, or takes a medication, trail days bring their own questions. Ask the camp who carries the medication, how it stays dry and what the plan is far from base. Your child's doctor or care team can help you prepare what the trip staff need to know.

Instructor qualifications

Instructors bring a mix of backgrounds to wilderness camps. Their training can include first aid for remote settings, experience leading trips, and skill training in paddling, climbing or navigation. Time spent learning the camp's own routes counts as well.

A camp may also run its own training before the season, covering its routes, its emergency plans and how staff work with campers. Teams can mix returning instructors who know the land with newer instructors who bring training from other programs.

Job titles such as lead instructor or trip leader can mean different things at different camps. For your child, the detail that matters is who is with the group each day. After that come their training and how long they have led trips in that kind of country.

Questions to ask a wilderness camp

The usual questions to ask any summer camp still apply. A wilderness program adds its own, about trip length, weather, gear and how groups are formed.

These questions work for any program you find among outdoor camps, whatever shape its trips take. The answers give you a clear view of the days your child would spend out there.

Wilderness camp FAQs

Closing

With the duffel still half full on the bedroom floor, the gear list reads differently once you can picture the days it is packed for. The rain jacket is for an afternoon storm, the headlamp for the walk to the tent. The wool socks are for a cold morning by the stove.

A wilderness camp can mean a home base with trips out, a session on the move, or wild country added to a traditional summer. Answers about trip length, weather, gear and leaders give you the detail to match a program's days with the summer your family has in mind.