Top overnight summer camps in Colorado are meant to be different. Young people choose and enjoy the experience of an overnight summer camp in Colorado exactly because of the challenges such a stay implies. Kids like to discover things not only about their surroundings but also about themselves. Placed in a sometimes challenging and always compelling environment, kids who come to overnight summer camps in Colorado usually end up having a chance to do both. Along the way they make friends and have fun. It’s a costly summer adventure but the results are just what television commercials say “priceless”.
Cheley Camps, Estes Park, Colorado The Cheley summer camp experience has been offered to young people now for nearly 90 years apparently with success. Kids who come to Cheley come for a four week session that gives them time to learn about their environment, try activities that were previously foreign to them and get to know people who may become their very best friends for a life time.
What is unusual about the Cheley Camp is its commitment to free choice made by campers in terms of the activities they choose. Of course when a camp is set in the Rocky Mountains the activities can range from the easy and normal to challenging and strenuous. Kids find they can select to spend their time. Cheley claims to offer more than 60 different trips and activities each week from which campers can select. Not only does this allow the camper to vary both activities and companions.
Activity selections include but aren’t limited to fishing, hiking, riding, rafting, backpacking, even target sports like archery or riflery. The idea in all of these activities is seldom laced with competition. It is more about fun and learning. Best of all campers find that being away at a top overnight summer camp in Colorado can give you a chance to just enjoy being yourself.
A full four week program will cost parents $4,100 . For more information about Cheley Camps in Estes Park Colorado call at 970-586-4244.
Colvig Summer Camps, Durango, Colorado. it must be something about the mountain air and the beautiful environment that makes some of the top overnight summer camps in Colorado avoid the competition and rivalry that is prevalent in so many other camps today. The big difference perhaps lies in the goal of Colvig Summer Camps in Durango, Colorado. They are not setting out to make Olympian champions or even state champions in a particular sport. The goal at Colvig Summer Camps is put simply by the directors “to facilitate the development of caring, thoughtful and responsible human beings. What a simple, but wonderful goal and certainly one with which most parents would hardily agree.
The amazing thing is that Colvig Summer Camps is a place that is also applauded by the kids who attend. What seems most appealing to kids is the choice aspect of the summer experience here. While in camp, kids can take an active part in tailoring their own camp program. There are lots of activities from which to select but basically it comes down to choosing from more traditional camp activities like water front activities or arts and crafts or branching out and selecting from activities that reflect the expertise of camp leadership. Those non traditional activities might include things like yoga, creek sloshing or African dance. The combination of lots of activities from which to choose and the opportunity to make selections on your own gives campers a real feeling of personal responsibility and satisfaction about the choices they make and is part of the growing process
The highlight of every camp session is not an end of the month talent show. No the real highlight is an off camp trip of from 1-5 days that allows young people to enjoy direct and sustained contact with nature. Campers take responsibility for setting up camp, preparing meals and keeping personal gear under control. Regardless of which particular trip kids complete they will have plenty of chances to work as responsible members of a team and as an individual. Most trips take campers into the Four Corners are of the state and can involve activities like Mountain Biking, Desert Backpacking, rafting or exploration.
Sanborn Western Camps, Florissant, Colorado. For lots of different reasons camps often decide to provide for the needs of boys and girls by offering activities in separate venues. Sanborn Western Camps, has welcomed boys and girls to Colorado life since 1948 but has offered them western experiences at Big Spring Ranch for Boys and High Trails Ranch for Girls. Sanborn Western Camps has the luxury of offering these brother-sister camp programs on 6,000 acres of land they own in the middle of the state of Colorado.
Sanborn Western Camps also use the free choice method of camp programming. Because of their specific location and the training of their staff the activities from which boys choose at Big Spring Ranch include some of the old favorites like swimming, tennis and horseback riding. But more unique offerings include Tipi Village Activities, Singing and Arrowhead Search. Not surprisingly over at High Trails Ranch the girls are choosing from a similar list and may be coming up with Fossil Digging, Photography and Rock Scrambling along with the more traditional canoeing, volleyball and archery.
Sanborn Western Camps even provides programs for young people who have completed grades 1-4. While they are perhaps not ready for a full or half summer program with the older kids, at Sanborn Junior, younger campers get comfortable with the overnight experience for just a two week period but enjoy some of the same Sanborn camp activities and adventures. It is a well devised method to break younger children into the overnight camping program .
Tuition for the full month programs at Big Spring Ranch for Boys and High Trails Ranch for Girls is $3800 and for Sanborn Junior $1900.
