Wilderness Education Immersion for ages 11-16 near Mt Rainier with prerequisite
Calling all Wolf Camp alumni! Even if you’ve only attended one camp, you can join us out in the wilderness for this camp we nick-named the Extraordinary, Unimaginable, Exceptional, Enchanting, Mind-Boggling, Mesmerizing, Magical, Miraculous, Wondrous, Virtually Superlative Out Of This World Wilderness Skills Educational Experience, but we don’t want to set expectations too high (lol) so just know that’s it’s a great chance to get away from society, and return to the natural world as it was originally created. More than any program we offer, this camp reveals theh true secrets of nature, and teaches the most practical skills in the outdoors.
Now more than ever, we need a real connection to nature, and skills of resiliency as we face everything the future holds. In this camp, you’ll learn the skills your ancestors once knew, opening a world of understanding and confidence for you in the wilderness and society. You’ll experience the nature awareness and survival skills in which we specialize, and bond with new friends as you work together to overcoming challenges throughout the week, emerging ready to embrace anything life brings.
Similar to our Advanced Wilderness Skills & Survival Trek taking place simultaneously, this week provides reliable and practical skills for emergency survival situations as well as life skills applicable to the challenges of life. Some of the skills include:
- Practicing the Critical Order of Emergency Survival with and without the 10 Essentials;
- Top 10 Lost-proofing, Navigation & Orienteering Challenges;
- Building traditional Survival Shelters, such as the Wickiup and Thatch Hut;
- Building Low Maintenance Fires, and using the Bow Drill to make fire-by-friction;
- Spinning natural rope for your shelter, bow-drill kit, shoelaces, and fishing line;
- Learning Knife Safety and how to use other tools;
- Learning how to purify water using iodine, filters, and seeps; practice boiling water in a metal water bottle;
- Mitigating the Top 10 Hazards in nature and what to do during animal encounters;
- Practicing wilderness medicine emergency response scenarios;
- Eating the Top 5 Most Important Survival Plants and using the Top 5 Medicinal Herbs of the Northwest;
- Foraging for crawfish, grubs and insects and other critters legal and safe to harvest in the summer as sources of protein in survival situations;
One of the many things we’ll get deep into this week includes natural navigation, starting with skills to become lostproof and mastering map and compass orienteering. We’ll teach you our four step method of using map and compass which is simple and effective. You’ll practice following contour lines in the foothills of Mt. Rainier in order to stay above thick brush, while using beautiful cascading waterways as “handrails.” You’ll also be amazed by some of the incredible ways to walk in a straight line toward your destination on a map.
Camp Availability:
This camp is open and available until filled for youth ages 11-16 who have attended at least one overnight camp with us the past, or a combination of two day camps / family workshops this year or in the past. Due to the wilderness setting of this camp, it’s not a week where kids can be trained to overcome homesickness or see how much behavioral progress they have made, but rather for youth who are ready and really want to be out there enjoying camp with us.
Camp Schedule & Activities:
Sunday Evening: Community Building & Icebreakers, Wilderness Camping Skills Training; Awareness Skill games like Owl Eyes, Fox Walk, Bear Nose & Coon Hands; Campfire Songs & Stories.
Monday Morning: Camp Breakfast Training, Nature Awareness Skills Training & Games, Wildlife Safety & Wilderness Risk Management Training & Scenarios
Monday Afternoon: Camp Lunch Training; Plant Walk to the Nisqually River; Wilderness Hygiene Training; Review Order of Survival & Return To Camp;
Monday Evening: Camp Dinner Training, Scout Bubble Bivi Bed Eagles Nest Hobbit Hutch Challenge.
Tuesday Morning: Wilderness First Aid Training & Scenarios; Navigation Training;
Tuesday Afternoon: Wilderness Navigation Challenge: Map & Compass Orienteering, and how to find directions with natural navigation, following the rules of lostproofing and employing all the outdoor risk management;
Tuesday Evening: Fifteen-Minute Fire Challenge; Traditional Fire Making; Campfire Songs & Stories.
Wednesday Morning: Move to Primitive Camp with focus on Language of the Birds; Latrine & Water Purification Trainings;
Wednesday Afternoon: Knife & Saw Trainings; Bow Drill Fire by Friction Training;
Wednesday Evening: Wild Edible & Medicinal Plants;
Thursday Morning: Wildlife Trackers Training; Participants may find solo survival trek locations;
Thursday Afternoon: Campers choice;
Thursday Evening: End the week with a campfire celebration on the sandy beaches of the Nisqually River.
Friday Morning: Primitive Camp Restoration; Groups rendezvous along Nisqually River;
Friday Afternoon: Return to Church Camp; Camp Celebration & Evaluations;
Friday Evening: Optional Transportation to Puyallup (7-8pm Pickup)
Pick-Up & Drop-Off Times & Directions
SUNDAY Afternoon Starting Points & Times: Arrive between 4:00-4:30 pm at the Faith Baptist Church Campground, 28514 SR 706 East, Ashford WA 98304, located 6.5 miles past Elbe WA and one mile before the town of Ashford on the road to Paradise on Mt. Rainier. You’re welcome to arrive between 4-5 pm for tent set-up, with our camp orientation and camp cooking from 5-6 pm before dinner clean-up and prep for our first evening session. We recommend parents depart about 6 pm. Or for an extra $95 fee, campers can get dropped off at the Wolf Camp Home Office of Blue Skye Farm, 1026 14th St SW, Puyallup WA 98371 between 1:00-1:30 on Sunday to ride down to Ashford with staff. Alumni flying into SeaTac Airport for this program may arrive Saturday in the p.m. or Sunday in and a.m., and we will provide airport transportation as well as food/meals for an additional fee.
FRIDAY AFTERNOON-EVENING Pick-Up Options: 4:00-4:30 p.m. at same location; or for an additional $95 we can provide transportation to Puyallup for pick-up anytime between 7:00-7:30 pm on Friday; or for $195 including dinner/breakfast, participants can stay overnight with us be picked up in Puyallup on Saturday in the late morning or afternoon, or for $295 including meals, participants can stay overnight with us and get dropped off at SeaTac Airport anytime Saturday afternoon or evening. Please note that campers will be returning Friday afternoon from our primitive camping location, located a mile down the gravel road along the Nisqually River, where we spend the second half of the week.
Camp Leaders
Kim or Chris Chisholm will be on site all week directing staff instructors at our hallmark 6-1 average student-teacher ratio that’s so critical for safe and profound outdoor experiences. Read our FAQ’s for more details and check out camp testimonials dating all the way back to 1997.
Tuition
Tuition for this camp week is $1,175 if this is your first-ever overnight camp with us, $1,075 if this is your second overnight camp with us, or $975 if it’s your third or more, including any applicable taxes and fees, but as part of the wilderness skills training, you will need to purchase personal food and cooking gear, hiking boots, and water filter for your camper, as well as practice meal preparation, tent set-up and water filtration in advance of attending. For those who are on a tight budget, we do have plenty of tents, sleeping bags, pads and some extra cooking gear as well as extra water filters (since those clog and break if not used properly) so if you need help acquiring items, just let us know. Click here for the full packing list, and don’t forget to click on the second tab for food shopping. Or click here to apply for financial aid from the Max Davis Scholarship Fund.
Registration Process
STEP 1 – Reserve your spots in camp by $200 deposits per overnight camp week via one of the following methods:
• Zelle using our email address with that extra “e” on skye plus try to add a note including camper name/age, camp start date/theme, plus your CONTACT INFORMATION (phone number is fine if system doesn’t allow sharing email) if we don’t already have your info since Zelle doesn’t automatically share that with us, or follow up right away with an email;
• Or use Venmo to @Chris-Chisholm-13 or • CashApp to $wolfschool but again, try to add your contact information, camper name, program theme and dates, or follow up via email;
• Or use Credit Card or Apple Pay by clicking here and follow up with an email;
• Or call us between 9am-9pm at 425-248-0253 ex 1 with a credit card to register over the phone;
• Or use PayPal system appearing below….
STEP 2 – If this is your camper’s first year with us, complete our once-in-a-lifetime Registration Form within one week of making your deposit. In case you’re having trouble downloading or making a copy of our Google Doc , please email us for a Word or PDF version of the registration form, and again, complete within one week to maintain your reservation. If your camper has attended Wolf Camp in the past, a new registration form is not needed.
STEP 3 – Pay balance during your summer camp weeks. We’ll email you an invoice this spring with camp prep info and balance payment options. All payments are non-refundable unless we refuse your registration. However, if you cancel (at any time for any reason is fine) we will save your payments as credit for you to use in future years, or you can choose to have us move the funds into our scholarship account if you prefer. The best practice is to make the minimum deposits to register, and then wait to pay the remaining balances during summer, but you are also welcome to pay your balance in advance if you prefer.
Refund Policy: Payments are not refundable unless we don’t accept your application. If you cancel for any reason, you may receive a full credit good through the following calendar year on appropriate and available programs listed on our schedule, although an additional deposit may be needed to secure your spot in the future program. If a program you sign up for is canceled and not rescheduled at a time you can attend, you may receive a full refund except in cases of natural (weather, geologic, wildfire, etc) disasters, grid failures, epidemics, government shutdowns, conflicts or curfews, or other unforeseen emergencies making it unsafe for staff and/or attendees to reach or use program locations, in which case all payments made will be held by us without expiration date for your future use in appropriate/available programs of your choice. Reasons include the expenditure of funds (property rentals, advertising, materials, admin staff time, etc.) long before programs take place, i.e. deposits make it feasible for Wolf Camp to schedule programs in the first place, but our mutually understood agreement is that Wolf Camp will run the program at the safest available time in the future. Finally, no refund, nor credit, is given if a participant is a no-show without prior notice, or asked to leave a program for inappropriateness as determined by our kids, youth and adult agreements for participation.
Camp Preparation: Agreements, Packing List, Health Protocols and FAQ’s
Recommended Packing List for Overnight Camps at Lake Sammamish (or click on your camp week for specialized packing lists when taking place at or traveling to other locations)
Agreements for Participation in Overnight Camps
Homesickness Protocol & Prevention
Other FAQ’s – Frequently Asked Questions (Most Asked Question: What are bathroom and sleeping arrangements like? Bathrooms are primitive, and we train campers in wilderness hygiene and private outdoor bathing methods as part of their learning experience. We provide camping tents, and campers may have (or bring) their own, or share one with others, depending on pandemic protocols. We recommend you bring your own pillow, sleeping bag and foam pad, although we have extras if needed. Click on packing list above for more details.)
Hygiene protocols will remain the same as last year as long as there’s still little evidence of Covid/Cold/Flu transmission in the outdoors with room to spread out. To start each day, campers must pass our health screening. If there are reports of group participants who came in contact with an infection, we may provide n95 masks to wear when less than 3-6 feet from others. As before the pandemic, we require hand sanitizing when sharing tools and materials, before entering toilets, and we train campers with proper hand washing after campers exit toilet facilities with doors left open between uses to ensure ventilation.
Full vaccinations are strongly encouraged – we follow the scientific consensus – with tetanus shot (usually given as part of the normal Tdap vaccine series) considered the most important in the field of outdoor education. Otherwise, we know that due to our 100% outdoor setting, combined with health screenings, contact tracing, supervised hand washing, bathroom ventilation, mask use when exposure has been reported in a group, and individual/family style tenting at overnight camps, the risk of disease transmission has been negligible at Wolf Camp, so other vaccination records are not required.
Read our FAQ’s for more details and register asap to give yourself or a loved one the gift of camp! Or email us to be put on our our list for this program in the future. We always keep your information absolutely private, and will never share it.