Traveling Summer Camp Takes Teens to New England Mountaintops

Visit this camp's Web site and you'll see a list of items that each camper must bring, including a rain poncho, hiking boots, sleeping bag and canteen. That, and tefillin.

Let's just say it's not your traditional type of camp. Well, that depends on your definition of "traditional." Yeshiva Outdoor Adventure, or Y.O.A. among the "in-crowd" is a traveling camp for Jewish boys ages 14-17. The campers will complete their almost month-long trek through New England this week.

Throughout, the camp emphasized its charges' spiritual development in addition to their physical stamina.

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A total of 25 campers and six staffers and counselors began the trip on Aug. 1. The campers came from all over the country: Florida, California, Illinois, Michigan, North Carolina, Minnesota and upstate New York. The staffers hailed from Colorado, Florida, New York, England and South Africa.

Rabbi Michoel Harari, a full-time teacher at the United Lubavitcher Yeshiva in Crown Heights, N.Y., directed the camp, which was under the auspices of Chabad-Lubavitch of Colorado. Troopers themselves, his wife Mishi and their six-month-old daughter, accompanied him for most of the journey, the activities of which included canoe trips, mountain hikes, makeshift games of basketball and games of paintball.

"She actually enjoys it a lot," Harari, reached during a brief acquisition of his cellular phone signal before heading back out into the mountains, said of his daughter. "Believe it or not."

A "typical" day at the camp began around 7 a.m., when the campers were awakened in their tents. They had time to wash, brush their teeth and have a light snack before morning prayers. During breakfast, the campers learned a little bit of Torah before heading off to the day's activity.

Another lesson in Chasidic thought filled out lunchtime, before a "lighter activity" of a short hike or ball game. Just as frequently, the afternoons were spent pitching tents and setting up the kitchen and bathroom spaces at a new campsite. They participated in another class for dinner.

After dinner, "if there was anything left of them," joked Harari, "we'd have another activity." Otherwise, it was bedtime around 9:15 p.m.

Harari, an avid outdoorsman, said the idea for Y.O.A. began about five years ago when he assisted Chabad-Lubavitch emissaries in Australia. There, schools have two-week breaks between sessions instead of the more American-style two-month summer vacation. Australian students, consequently, would often go on one- or two-week backpacking trips on their down time.

Then about two years ago, the rabbi spent a year and a half in the Ukraine, where he hiked in the Carpathian Mountains for two weeks at a time and stayed in villages in between. He decided to combine both experiences in a format easily accessible to Jewish teenagers.

Last year, Rabbi Yisroel Popack, co-director of Chabad-Lubavitch of Colorado, gave Harari the opportunity to put his dream into action. With the help of Rabbi Yisroel Engel and Chaya Gurary – who ran a similar traveling camp for girls called Teva Tours – Harari got the program off the ground.

At the conclusion of last year's camp, parents and campers, such as the Anati family in Miami, exclaimed that the camp should have been six weeks long.

"Ben had a great time and would do it again," the family wrote on the camp's blog.

Of the camp's now second successful summer, Harari said that when you're hiking up mountains, logistics are key. In preparation for their ascent on Mt. Washington, known as one of the most challenging summits to climb in the continental U.S. and boasting average wind speeds of 50 m.p.h., the campers scaled a few smaller peaks.

They also made stops in Vermont; Cape Cod, Mass., and Canada. Besides Mt. Washington, they conquered Mt. Marcy in the Adirondacks, the highest point in New York State. In addition, they climbed Cadillac Mountain, the highest point along the north Atlantic seaboard, hiked through Acadia National Park in Maine, and spent half a week canoeing upriver.

"The weather could've been better," surmised Harari. "It was difficult and was definitely something they've never done before.

"But as soon as they accomplished their goal," he added proudly of his campers, "they felt on top of the world."