Overnight Camp for Boys in the Adirondack Mountains

One seven-week season for everyone, with a four-week option for a boy trying camp for the first time. Activities are assigned by age group so a camper moves through the day with his bunkmates, and every activity is run by a counselor who is a specialist in it. Team sports cover baseball, basketball, lacrosse, soccer, roller hockey, flag football, ultimate frisbee and beach volleyball; from 6th grade up a camper can play inter-camp games and try out for tournament teams in soccer, basketball, baseball and hockey. There are no lessons and no academic subjects.

Tuition covers every camp activity and the coach transport to and from camp, including pickup from Albany airport. Airfare is not included. The only separate charges the camp names are baggage transportation, senior trips, private lessons, lifeguard training and lice treatment, plus USTA tournaments, USTA membership and golf.

Boys live in bunks on the Baco grounds at the south end of Lake Balfour, with at least three counselors in each bunk. A Camp “Mom” lives on site at each camp, and her only job is to look after the campers. Brothers and sisters at the two camps meet every Saturday after lunch, with the venue rotating week by week.

Each camp has its own dining hall. Campers sit with their bunk and meals are served buffet style, with plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables. Many meals are eaten outside, with regular barbecues and cookouts. The kitchen caters for special diets — peanut-sensitive, gluten-free and lactose intolerant among them — and when a camper has a peanut allergy his bunkmates are told in advance and asked not to bring food with peanuts into the bunk.

Tennis is run by a tennis professional on eight courts at Baco, with skill work, drills and practice play, and private lessons available for a fee. The waterfront on Lake Balfour carries Red Cross “Learn to Swim” instruction, diving and lifesaving, canoes, kayaks, funyaks and sunfish sailboats, waterskiing with the camp’s own ski boat, skimboarding, wakeboarding and a daily free swim. Pioneering takes campers onto Adirondack trails and overnights; the climbing tower at Che-Na-Wah and the high ropes and zip line at Baco are run by certified counselors. Archery, weight training for the senior boys, arts and crafts with pottery wheels and kilns, musical theatre with Broadway-credited staff and rock bands fill the rest. Camp buses go out to hiking, bowling, mini-golf and the amusement parks near Lake George.

The camp sits on its own grounds on Lake Balfour, with sports fields, an indoor gym, eight tennis courts, an archery range, a high ropes and zip line course, an open-air weight-training pavilion, an arts and crafts pavilion with a creation station on a balcony over the lake, indoor and outdoor theatres and its own dining hall. The climbing tower stands at Che-Na-Wah and is used by both camps.

Camp Baco opened in 1951 beside Camp Che-Na-Wah, which was established in 1923, and the Wortman family has directed both for generations. About 95 percent of campers come back the following summer and 80 percent of counselors return. Staff are university and graduate students and certified teachers; waterfront counselors hold Red Cross Lifeguard Training certification, swim instructors hold Water Safety Instructor certification, and ropes and climbing-tower counselors are certified. Every staff member is screened and reference-checked. Boys and girls meet through the summer for the Fourth of July celebration and talent show, the charity bazaar, the end-of-summer dance and the co-ed musical theatre shows.