Camp Hi-SierraFriends of

CampHiSierra.org is a participation-driven website maintained by the Friends of Camp Hi-Sierra, an informal volunteer project of registered Venturers and Venturing adults as well as Camp Hi-Sierra alumni.

We would love your help!

"Us" could mean at least 3 different things here, all related:

Camp Hi-Sierra

Camp Hi-Sierra is a Boy Scout summer camp owned and operated since 1949 by the Santa Clara County Council of the Boy Scouts of America. It is located in the Stanislaus National Forest in Northern California, a few miles off of Highway 108 and a short distance from Yosemite National Park. You can find maps and directions to Camp on our aptly-named Maps & Directions page.

Camp Hi-Sierra offers a full-fledged Boy Scout summer camp experience including Merit Badge sessions and a Trail to First Class program, though it is particularly well-known for its opportunities for older Scouts. At Camp Hi-Sierra, older Scouts may choose between an in-Camp Mountain Adventure program that emphasizes the most fun and exciting elements of advanced Scouting skills, or the Trekking program that offers a 5-day excursion by mountain bike and backpacking through the wilderness.

Friends of Camp Hi-Sierra

The Friends of Camp Hi-Sierra is an informal project of volunteers who love and care about Camp Hi-Sierra. It originated in 2006 through a series of conversations among Camp Hi-Sierra staff, alumni, and adult volunteers concluding that Camp and its community of alumni and fans could greatly benefit from a volunteer-driven Camp promotional project. We call that project the "Friends of Camp Hi-Sierra."

Who are the Friends of Camp Hi-Sierra? If you find yourself coming to Camp Hi-Sierra year after year, whether as a staff member, a Scoutmaster, a Commissioner, or a camper, chances are good that you already are a "Friend of Camp Hi-Sierra." Friends of Camp are folks who want to see Camp Hi-Sierra continue its fifty-plus year history and continue to improve. Friends of Camp Hi-Sierra volunteer year-round to help promote Camp and spread its zaniness, whether it's by simply logging into the CampHiSierra.org website to add their favorite stories and pictures, or whether it's contacting troops in the off-season to promote Hi-Sierra.

We'd love to have you join us! See the "Get Involved" section below for more details!

CampHiSierra.org

When the first conversations began about the Friends of Camp Hi-Sierra, it became clear that a participatory, user-created website would perfectly mimic the sort of atmosphere and excitement that we find at Camp Hi-Sierra itself. Considering that most of us are from "Silicon Valley" and that several Camp staff alumni work as tech professionals, it's not surprising that the buzzwords started rolling out quickly. We like to think that this website is designed very clearly with the "Web 2.0" vision in mind - that a website shouldn't be a boring and static thing that some boring people update from time to time from the solitude of their offices. Rather, we thought, it should be an exciting and involving process where people can share stories and jokes and knowledge about something we all love - Camp!

This website doesn't just invite you, it needs you to jump into the fun! Most of our content is based on a wiki model (similar to Wikipedia.org), where editing content is as easy as hitting the "Edit" button and typing in whatever you know. If you want to spiff it up a bit with links and simple formatting, the formatting tricks are incredibly easy - 5 minutes and you'll be rolling like a freight train in a Johnny Cash song!

In case you're even more curious, this website is hosted by Dreamhost and run on Linux servers. True to our participatory goal, we use a free software (open-source, GPL-licensed) content management system called Drupal which itself runs on other free software elements like MySQL and PHP. Check our license to see how we've licensed our own original content.

How to Get Involved

To get involved in the website, first of all be sure to make a login account, which is easy and 100% free.

The Help Wiki is an excellent place to get started on learning how to edit these wiki pages (they're EASY - just click "Edit" in the tab above to see what they look like.

Volunteer to help by using our Contact Form and leaving us your contact information! When you're asked for a category, pick "web site" and it will send your e-mail to the website team, so we can direct you to the most relevant folks.

Beyond the website, we're always looking for folks to help promote and support Camp by contacting Troops, developing promotional materials, or even finding program materials or doing service projects at Camp itself! Please use the Contact Form to find us, and we'll be happy to get you plugged in.