The badge path
What each badge covers
A camper starts at Trail and moves up at their own pace, across weeks and from one summer to the next. Nobody moves up because a week ended.
Trail
SkillsPack a day pack and carry it for the whole day
Walk at the group's pace and stay in the group
Drink water and eat a snack at every stop, before you are thirsty
Check your hat, sunscreen and layers at every stop
Name the plants and animal signs along a trail
Moving upA counselor watches you do each skill on more than one day and signs it off before you start the next badge.
Camp
SkillsSet up a shade fly with a partner
Tie a taut-line, a bowline and a clove hitch
Set up and wash up a camp kitchen table
Pack out everything we carried in
Pick a site and leave it the way we found it
Moving upYou and a partner set up and take down a camp site while a counselor watches, and the site is left as it was.
Navigate
SkillsFind where we are on a trail map
Take a bearing with a compass
Follow a short route and tell the group when the trail changes
Read the clouds and the wind, and know when to turn back
Lead one leg of a trail with a counselor at the back
Moving upYou lead a short leg of a trail day, with a map and a compass, while a counselor walks behind you.
Sample levels.
Campers who have done this before tell us at registration, and a counselor looks at their skills on the first day.
What camp leaves out
Some things are not part of camp
The badges are about walking, camping and finding the way, and a few things stay out of them.
No overnights
Tentpole is a day camp. Every camper goes home at 3:00 p.m.
No phones
Phones stay home. Counselors carry one on every trail.
No racing
Groups walk at the pace of the slowest camper, and nobody is hurried up a hill.
No leftovers
Everything we carry in, we carry out, including the snack wrappers.
Ready for the first badge?
Pick a week on our enrollment page, or call and ask where your camper would start.