Kramer-Martin Campout: Day #2 Camp Baldwin

On Saturday we visited Camp Baldwin, BSA. Tim's brother Greg joined us for this part of the trip as well. Tim worked at Baldwin for four years in high school and college. We had a great time and I have now checked yet another camp off my list to visit (I'm trying to hit all the camps in WA and OR in my lifetime). Here are some photos of our visit. The first is the staff dining hall. They do all provisional cooking at Baldwin (meaning the patrols cook and eat in their campsites all week). The idea of having 3 staff meals a day sounds good to me!

Their waterfront area is minimal and I believe the lake is man-made. They don't offer many program items here, but then again, troops probably don't choose Baldwin specifically for the aquatics.

Baldwin has mountain biking and mountain boarding right near their climbing wall. There is a makeshift mountain boarding course set up, which I'm sure is a big attraction for the scouts.

Campfire bowl:

The camp is huge with lots of hills. The kids did very well hiking around, but someone needed a ride from Dad towards the end.

At last, the corral! Baldwin has a horsemanship program with around 40 horses in residence. The kids had fun watching them and feeding them.

As with all my scout camp visits, here's a mini evaluation....

Negatives:

-As many troops have described to me, Baldwin is very hot and dusty, being on the east side of the mountains. Not my idea of a great time, but they can't do much about it.

-As with Camp Hahobas, the camp lacks a central lodge or historical building that encompasses the heart of camp. However, because of winter snow I had to remember that they tear almost everything down in the fall making it difficult to have many permanent structures

-Aquatics was fairly nondescript as I mentioned before. The lake is pretty, but the camp is not particularly scenic. Campfire bowl doesn't have a view for example.

Positives:

-HUGE property that extends to outpost areas. Lots of potential here and it sounds like they make good use of it with hikes and horse overnights.

-The horse program seemed awesome and is clearly a defining feature of the camp program.

-While I'm not wild about provisional cooking, Baldwin clearly has a good system down that works well. I doubt this will be the death of the camp, the way it was at Omache.

-Several interesting programs (like mountain boarding) that will attract older scouts.

-I did not see their staff in action (although some of them looked awfully young compared to what you see at Parsons), but just by visiting we could tell there were elements of pride and tradition that is so important in delivering a quality program.

We were exhausted after our trip to Baldwin. The kids were real troopers and we all left hot and dusty. There was time for one more swim in Trillium Lake before dinner and another campfire.