One of our greatest strengths at Stone Mountain Adventures is our amazing staff of camp counselors! They are dynamic, responsible, skillful, funny, and fair. Our staff listens, cares, and treats everyone with respect. Most of all, our counselors put the needs of our campers before their own. They are all over 21 years old, well trained and equipped to lead groups both outdoors and in the cabins, and excited to spend their summer with teen campers. They support campers with all of their thoughts, words, and actions. Plus, our awesome, skillful counselors specialize in cool things like wakeboarding, rock climbing, mountain biking, music, and horseback riding! Campers often comment that the genuine friendships that are formed with our camp counselors and the magical memories that are shared create a wonderful feeling of family.
Most summers, there’s a good mix of American and International counselors. Our American counselors come from schools and outdoors programs from across the country (Since SMA is located near State College, PA, home of Pennsylvania State University, we often have Penn State students and graduates as counselors), and most summers we have a few former veteran campers who return as counselors! This is AMAZING because they get to know SMA from both perspectives and are very passionate about creating the same types of positive experiences for new campers. Each summer we also have several “funny talkers,” hailing from countries like England, New Zealand, Australia, Ireland, Mexico, and more. It’s wonderful to have them at camp for the summer, as we get to learn about their cultures while they lend us their enthusiasm and expertise!
Director Jud and his wife Anne (herself a veteran educator) hand-pick the staff team each summer. Many of our staff members come from outdoors, educational, and medical backgrounds, so EMTs, guides, teachers, and nurses are common. To complement these qualifications and ensure standards of outdoors, educational, and medical expertise, we run a 10-day staff training period before the start of camp each summer. During this time, counselors will practice skills like belaying, driving (vans and boats!), CPR, canoeing, camping, group activity facilitation, and social management.