Director Jud's Blog

Outside Magazine has name Dirt Rag's Dirt Fest as one of the nations top Mountain Biking Festivals in the USA!

Dirtfest is a fantastic event that is weekend long mountain bike festival promoting a hearty spirit for adventure, festivity and camaraderie. DirtFest features clinics on sustainable trail building, entry level mountain biking, sustainable trail maintenance; and includes organized events such as a womens skills series, kids mountain bike rides, unicycle course and an epic all day group ride that departs on a houseboat shuttle. Hosted by the Raystown Mountain Bike Association (RMBA).

Topics: Teen summer camp, teenage summer camp, Mountain Biking, mountain biking summer camp, SMA Teen Camp, Outside Magazine, Dirtfest

Topics: Teen Horseback Riding Summer Camp, Horseback riding camp northeast, riding summer camp

It has finally happened... the 2013 SMA Teen Summer Camp Video Slide Show is live on our web site!

Topics: Teen summer camp, slideshows 2013, Tween Summer Camp

Last week there was a buzz at SMA Rock Climbing Summer Camp's Donation Rock Climbing Area because of North Face athlete Mark Synnott.  Mark is an elite North Face climber based in Jackson, New Hampshire and was in town to give a talk at Appalachian Outdoors.  He and a group of local central PA climbers were at Donation Rocks last Wednesday, 10/9 and were blessed with sunshine and 70+ degree weather.    

Topics: Donation Rocks, Rock Climbing Summer Camp, Teen Rock Climbing Camp, Mark Synnott, The North Face, Stone Mountain Adventures

Topics: Teen Camp, Donation Rocks, Rock Climbing Summer Camp, SMA Teen Camp, Liberty Mountain

Stone Mountain Adventures Teen Summer Camp is excited to announce our 2014 dates and prices!

• SMA now offers four 2 week sessions
• Campers are encouraged to combine sessions and stay longer

2 Week Sessions	Begins	Ends	Duration
Session 1    (SMA1)	Sunday 6/22	Saturday 7/5	2 Weeks
Session 2    (SMA2)	Sunday 7/6	Saturday 7/19	2 Weeks
Session 3    (SMA3)	Monday 7/21	Sunday 8/3	2 Weeks
Session 4    (SMA3)	Tuesday 8/5	Monday 8/18	2 Weeks

4 Week Sessions	Begins	Ends	Duration
Session 1 & 2	Sunday 6/22	Saturday 7/19	4 Weeks
Session 2 & 3	Sunday 7/6	Sunday 8/3	4 Weeks
Session 3 & 4	Monday 7/21	Monday 8/18	4 Weeks

6 Week Sessions	Begins	Ends	Duration
Session 1 & 2 & 3	Sunday 6/22	Sunday 8/3	6 Weeks
Session 2 & 3 & 4	Sunday 7/6	Monday 8/18	6 Weeks
8 Week Sessions	Begins	Ends	Duration
Session 1 & 2 & 3 & 4	Sunday 6/22	Monday 8/18	8 Weeks

Tuition

$2250 for One Sessions (2 Weeks)

$4980 for Two Sessions (4 Weeks)

$7350 for Three Sessions (6 Weeks)

$8880 for Four Sessions (8 Weeks)

Ready to sign up? Here is our 2014 Camper Application.

Tuition is all inclusive, and covers laundry, entrance fees to all out-of-camp trips, and white water rafting. "Masters Programs" are described below and require an extra fee.

Topics: Teen summer camp, 2 Week Summer Camp, Summer Camp PA, Dates and Prices, 2014 Summer Camp

It is hard to believe that 3rd Session at SMA Teen Summer Camp and August have already arrived and we are nearly half way through session three. This summer has gone by so unbelievably fast and before we know it all the campers will be on the road home. The weather this summer has been quite the roller coaster, ranging from scorching hot during session two to raining almost every day of session one. For 3rd Session it has finally leveled out with warm days and cool nights!

Topics: Summer camp, Teen summer camp, teenage summer camp, Summer Camp PA

Summer camp, then and now (via NewsWorks)

July 2, 2013 By Jonathan Zimmerman Download Audio File » Listen to the interview. (Reposted with permission from www.newsworks.org)

I  went to three different summer camps when I was a kid, in the late 1960s and early 1970s. I swam, hiked, and played sports (badly). And sometimes, I did nothing at all. That's what summer — and camp — were all about.

My, how times have changed.

About 20 years ago, so-called "specialty camps" began to replace the general-interest kind that I attended. So now you can go to camps that stress particular activities, from cooking and computers to robotics and rocketry.

Even at general-interest camps, meanwhile, kids are much more likely to receive professional athletic coaching, top-of-the-line art and music instruction, or even SAT-prep classes. Camp isn't just for fun anymore. It's about building a resume, a skill-set, a profile, a future. Like school, camp now prepares young people to win the great Race of Life. And that's a big loss, for all of us.

Camps more like school now

Ironically, summer camps began as an antidote to school rather than an extension of it. According to Ernest Balch, who founded the country's first camp in 1881, formal educational institutions were making young men "soft." Boys needed a rugged outdoor experience to escape the "weakening feminine influences" of modern society.

Around the turn of the century, the YMCA and the Boy Scouts started summer camps. So did groups with names like the Woodcraft Indians and the Sons of Daniel Boone, all devoted to recovering the lost rustic masculinity of the old frontier.

In 1893, historian Frederick Jackson Turner had famously described the frontier as the key to American identity. In the same essay, however, Turner announced that the frontier was gone! So summer camps would keep its spirit alive. With their simple tents and cabins, camps would give boys "the sturdier training of our forebears," as one camp advocate wrote.

Girls' camps arose, too, so that young women from the city could breathe fresh country air and grow into healthy mothers.

"The old-time education of girls kept them too much under cover," a Girl Scout magazine warned in 1917, "too much confined to books, too little free to engage in sports that might spoil their clothes."

Camp would free both sexes from the stifling effects of over-civilization, even as it reinforced their separate roles.

Naming roots

To do that, camps borrowed names and activities from the "primitives" who preceded whites on the frontier: Native Americans.

Indian-style ritual "gives the boy the much needed opportunity to express his inherent savagery," one camp brochure declared. "Just to be free, to run, to climb, to shout and yell like a wild Indian on a war-path!"

Girls, meanwhile, made Indian skirts and jewelry. And several camps boasted that they hired actual Indians, rendering the camps more "authentic" than their competitors.

Eventually, this same competition would lead many camps to forsake their simple facilities on behalf of modern amenities, especially electricity and indoor plumbing.

"Will they come back to your camp?" asked an advertisement for flush toilets in a 1931 camping magazine. "The parents — who pay the bills — must be satisfied that your camp is absolutely sanitary."

Many camps also began to show Hollywood movies at night, tapping into young people's growing appetite for commercial culture. But others balked at it, holding the line against "the tidal wave of jazz and crowded hall and movie and cabaret," as one director wrote.

Pop-culture restrictions

Into the present, some camps still try to insulate kids from popular culture by barring smartphones and blocking the Internet. But they're fighting a losing battle. Camps now offer film-making, Web design, and "field trips" to amusement parks and malls. And many of their activities — like cooking competitions — are ripped straight from reality TV.

Most of all, though, camps advertise skills that will allegedly help kids succeed in the so-called real world. By the 1990s, the rising cost of college — and the increased competition for admission — made families ever-more anxious about their children's future. Why waste a summer at a general-interest camp, when you could be gaining "aptitudes" and "experiences" that will separate you from the pack?

That seems like a great way to deny kids their childhood. There will be plenty of time, later in life, to plot and strategize about moving up in the world. Trust me, I'm an adult. I do that all the time.

But when I was a kid, I didn't.

The last camp I attended proclaimed itself "the camp with the pioneer spirit." That meant sleeping outside, running around barefoot, and, yes, participating in "Indian" ceremonies. You developed important life skills--including cooperation and compromise — but you didn't have to stand out from the tribe. It was about getting along, not getting ahead.

And I'll always be grateful for that.

Jonathan Zimmerman teaches education and history at New York University. He is the author of "Small Wonder: The Little Red Schoolhouse in History and Memory" (Yale University Press).

---

Topics: Summer camp, Teen summer camp, Summer Camps

It is hard to believe that our first week of summer camp fun has already ended. Time really does fly when you’re having fun! All the campers have settled nicely into their perspective cabins, and have spent some quality time with their bunkmates establishing a mutual understanding and living arrangement. When it’s time for lights out, we always hear a fair share of laughter coming from all the cabins and stories of late night talks in the morning at breakfast.

            Our first week was packed with thrilling summer camp activities! The Wakemasters have hit up Raystown Lake and have already set their personal goals for the session. “I’m going to clear the wake” or “I’m going to land that jump” are only a few examples of how motivated and determined our kids really are. Windsurf and sail has been a very popular activity so far. Who wouldn’t love relaxing and getting a tan on top of a windsurf board. The rock climbing extravaganzas have also begun and the campers are having an absolute blast conquering each rock placed in front of them. On another note, rumors from the barn have spread and all of the Horsemasters have picked their perspective horses to care for. Riding lessons have begun and all the horse chicks are looking forward to their first trail ride in the upcoming week. Basketball knockout games, arts and craft, tennis, softball and of course ultimate frisbee have all been a huge success thus far this session. And of course the campers are always ready for a cool dip in the lake after a hot sweaty intense game. The only way to describe the first week at SMA summer camp is action packed!

Topics: Summer camp, Teen summer camp, Summer Camp PA, 1st week of camp, Summer update, SMA Summer Camp

At Stone Mountain Adventures we ride the Allegrippis Trails everyday.  Here are a few new sweet videos on YouTube about the Allegrippis Trails that are worth checking out!

Topics: Summer camp, Teen summer camp, teenage summer camp, Mountain Biking, mountain biking summer camp

Stone Mountain Adventures Teen Summer Camp will have a booth at the Appalachian Outdoors Spring Outdoor Expo which will take place on Saturday, April 13 from 10 to 5pm.  We are excited to see our State College friends, former campers and former camp counselors at the Expo.  Former camper and camp counselor this summer Ali Sanzo will be covering the booth for part of the day and Jud Millar will be there as we.  

Topics: Teen summer camp, teenage summer camp, Spring Outdoor Expo

Topics: Summer camp, Teen summer camp, teenage summer camp, choosing a teen summer camp

Stone Mountain Adventures Teen Summer Camp was recently featured in the "Good Life" section of the Centre Daily Times under the "Living Local" heading. Jud and Anne were interviewed a few weeks ago by reporter Chris Rosenblum with Nabil K. Mark coming to camp to take photos.

Topics: Summer camp, Teen summer camp, Centre Daily Times

Topics: Summer camp, Teen summer camp, teenage summer camp, summer camp in the media

Spending  46 hours of my life with no sitting or sleeping has to be the most unique experience I have ever  had the opportunity to be a part of. Getting  the honor to dance in THON 2013 was an amazing time full of moments that I will never forget. Inside the Bryce Jordan Center at Penn State University from 4:00pm on Friday February 15th 2013 until 4:00pm on Sunday February 17th 2013 there was always something going on and more than enough people to pass the time with.  My journey started early Friday morning, I woke up around 8:00 am, had breakfast, went to class at 11:00 am, packed my things, and then headed to the BJC at 2:30 pm. Technically, over the weekend I was probably awake for a total of 58 hours without sleeping.

Topics: Teen summer camp, teenage summer camp, THON, camp counselor, DANCE

An upcoming episode of The Mindy Project will feature Seth Rogen as the latest in a long line of famous guest stars to play the love interest of Dr. Mindy Lahiri. Other famous guest stars who have appeared on the show include Ed Helms, B.J. Novak, and Seth Meyers. Rogen will be playing Mindy Kaling’s summer camp crush on an upcoming episode of her Fox comedy The Mindy Project, according to media reports.

Rogen, who attended summer camp as a kid at Camp Miriam in British Columbia (he’s featured in the camp’s 2009 promo video), will be playing Sam, the kid Mindy Lahiri shared her first kiss with at Jewish teen summer camp, in an episode titled “The One That Got Away.”  

Topics: Summer camp, camp, summer camp in the media, Fox, Seth Rogen, camp crush, the Mindy Project, Summer camp on TV

SMA camp counselor Sarah Bademan '12 has been involvedwith THON for the past three years while a student at Penn State University. The PSU Dance Marathon, commonly referred to as THON is:

Topics: Summer camp, Teen summer camp, camp, THON, camp counselor

A few weeks ago I traveled to Manchester, England, for three days. It was a quick trip, but an incredible experience. The purpose of my trip was to attend a "staff fair" hosted by Camp America, a company that helps camps like SMA Teen Camp find international staff and then arranges their J1 work visas.  The staff fair was a smashing success with about 60 camps in attendance and more 2100 potential camp counselors trying to find the perfect camp for them.   

Topics: Teen summer camp, teenage summer camp, Manchester, Camp America

   Happy Holidays to Horsemasters and Non-Horsemasters alike!  Chilly weather is in the air at the farm, and all of the horses are bundled up in their blankets in preparation for the colder weather. While the snow hasn't started falling quite yet, there has been plenty of ice in the water buckets in the mornings, and the horses are feeling frisky with the cold wind blowing!

Topics: Horseback riding camp northeast