National High Adventure Bases

Philmont Scout Ranch

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The New Birth of Freedom Council sends a council contingent to Philmont annually.

Born in 1938 as Philturn Rockymountain Scout Camp, today’s Philmont Scout Ranch is a bustling center for high adventure and training. Youth and adults take advantage of the Ranch’s camping, training and work programs. Most activity takes place during the summer, but Philmont also offers Autumn Adventure and Winter Adventure programs.

More than 1 million Scouts, Venturers, and leaders have experienced the adventure of Philmont since the first camping season in 1939. Throughout its existence, conscientious attention to low-impact camping techniques has helped maintain the Ranch’s wilderness.

The area surrounding the Ranch is rich with history, from the Native Americans who made this arid land their home to the land barons of the 19th century. The town of Cimarron boasts a number of historical buildings, including the St. James Hotel: the site of at least 26 killings during Cimarron’s wilder days.

Philmont Scout Ranch is Scoutings largest national High Adventure Base. Its 34 staffed camps and 55 trail camps provide an unforgettable adventure in the high country along hundreds of miles of rugged, rocky trails.

The Summit Bechtel Reserve

Summit_PrimaryLogotypeSituated in the wilds of West Virginia, The Summit is a training, Scouting, and adventure center for the millions of youth and adults involved in Scouting today. And anyone who loves the outdoors. And home to the National Scout Jamboree. And the Paul R. Christen National High Adventure Base which complements the three existing bases: Philmont Scout Ranch, Northern Tier and Florida Sea Base.

Get ready for the next century of Scouting. With incredible facilities and amazing outdoor programs, The Summit is a place that takes Scouts and Venturers to the limits of what they think they can do, and then pushes them further.

The Summit is more than just a place for Scouts; it’s where future leaders are shaped.  Visit official site

Northern Tier National High Adventure Bases

northern _tier_clip_colorNorthern Tier is the gateway to adventure in the Great Northwoods. In the Summer, scouts from Northern Tier’s three wilderness canoe bases explore millions of acres of pristine lakes, meandering rivers, dense forests and wetlands in Northern Minnesota, Northwest Ontario and Northeast Manitoba. In the winter, Northern Tier is home to the OKPIK Cold-Weather Camping program, the BSA’s premier winter high adventure program. Fall programming is also available.

Northern Tier is the oldest national High Adventure program, outfitting scouting groups for canoe trips since the summer of 1923. The Charles L Sommers Base has been home to the program since 1941.

North America’s Canoe Country, a vast series of navigable lakes and rivers spanning thousands of square miles, is one of the last great wildernesses on the continent. This boreal forest of waterfalls and bogs, bears and wolves, granite crags and waist-deep mud remains nearly as much of a wilderness as it was for the first fur traders who explored the area in the 1600s. Two centuries after the fur trade’s peak in the early 1800s, our participants still follow in the footsteps of the French-Canadian voyageurs, paddling the same waters and straining over the same portage trails.  Visit official site