Overnight Camp for Girls in the Adirondack Mountains

One seven-week season for everyone, with a four-week option for a girl trying camp for the first time. Activities are assigned by age group so a camper moves through the day with her bunkmates, and every activity is run by a counselor who is a specialist in it. Girls play softball, basketball, lacrosse, soccer and volleyball, along with homegrown camp sports such as lightning-ball; from 5th grade up a camper can take part in inter-camp swim meets, tennis matches and athletic tournaments. 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.

Girls live in bunks on the Che-Na-Wah grounds on 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. Sisters and brothers 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 her bunkmates are told in advance and asked not to bring food with peanuts into the bunk.

Tennis is run by a tennis professional, with skill work, drills and practice play, and private lessons available for a fee. The Che-Na-Wah 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. There is a casual gymnastics programme in an open-air pavilion and a recreational dance programme taught on an outdoor deck over the lake, with hip-hop routines performed at dance shows. Archery ranges stand at both camps, the climbing tower is at Che-Na-Wah and the high ropes and zip line at Baco, both run by certified counselors. Arts and crafts has pottery wheels and kilns and a creation station on a balcony overlooking the lake, and musical theatre is run by professionals with Broadway production credits. 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, tennis courts, an archery range, a climbing tower, an open-air gymnastics pavilion, an outdoor dance deck over the lake, an arts and crafts pavilion with a creation station on a balcony above the water, indoor and outdoor theatres and its own dining hall. The indoor gym and the high ropes course stand at Baco and are used by the girls too.

Camp Che-Na-Wah was established in 1923 and Camp Baco opened beside it in 1951; the Wortman family has directed both for generations, and Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was among the girls who spent summers here. 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. Girls and boys 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.