Traditional summer camp has evolved into a specialized sleep-away experience.
Upstate New York has mountains, lakes, forests, rivers, cool summer nights and warm days and enough summer camps to fill a phone directory. There are camps catering to every religion, sport, academic or arts interest, ability, disability and income. Most camps offer financial assistance and all emphasize team work, outdoors adventure mixed with typical camp activities, and beautiful surroundings.
French Woods Festival
French Woods Festival of the Performing Arts summer camp is tucked away in the Catskill Mountains on a private lake near the Pennsylvania border. It offers a noncompetitive performance experience in a wide array of disciplines from dance, theater and music; to circus arts, equestrian and rock and roll. Campers choose three major studies per session and three minor studies from a changing daily menu. The focus is on the major areas for most of the day with breaks to experience new things. Music camp covers instruction and performance in all orchestra instruments and features working conductors, voice coaches and frequent concerts. Skateboard camp has professional instructors, a half-pipe, a vertical ramp and a bowl. There is an indoor arena and outdoor trail riding, an enclosed skate park, tennis, waterskiing, sailing, a flying trapeze and plenty of wooden bunk beds and typical camp activities. Summer 2011 rates for a peak-season three-week session are $5,150, but rates vary by dates and number of sessions.
Point O' Pines
Point O' Pines camp for girls is on a peninsula that juts into Lake Brant in the Adirondack Mountains. The eight-week camp session provides a log-cabin, bunk-bed traditional setting and has tennis, golf, team sports, horseback riding, gymnastics, juggling, cooking classes, theater, dance, sailing, wilderness adventure and fitness instruction. Younger campers can sample the challenge course on the 500-acre farm that hosts the camp. Older campers can opt for day hikes, canoe trips and a three-night backcountry camping trip in the mountains. Evenings are spent toasting s'mores around the campfire or putting on Broadway shows, costume cabarets, western nights or other community shows. Campers are assigned to teams that compete throughout the summer in goofy relays and serious sports. 2010 residential camper rates were more than $800 per week.
Clover Patch Camp
Clover Patch Camp, north of Albany in eastern New York, caters to developmentally disabled adults and children with a fully accessible, rustic camp setting. The camp has nature trails, a heated pool, and a typical camp agenda. Rise and shine is at 7 a.m., and the flag raising and breakfast is followed by a day of sports and recreation, arts and crafts, music and drama, parades, carnivals, campfires, and supervised swimming in the 4-foot deep pool. Basketball, adapted volleyball, T-ball, and obstacle courses provide some action, while beading, painting, karaoke and dance appeal to inner artists. Campers are accepted from age 5 to 90, and may be disabled by mental retardation, autism, Asperger's, cerebral palsy, ADHD, Down syndrome, and muscular dystrophy but not behavioral disorders. The staff ratio is two campers for each trained staff member and a registered nurse is onsite 24-hours a day. Clover Patch Camp is operated by the non-profit Center for Disability Services and licensed by the New York State Department of Health. 2010 weekly overnight rates were $1,250 per camper.
