Normally, each day of Nature Camp will begin at 8:15 am and conclude at 3:00 pm. Because of construction this year at South School, Nature Camp will be located at South School, the HCSD Collaboraiton Center or the South Preschool. Students can ride to or be dropped off at any of these locations daily. However, we'll begin some days earlier (for example, the day we go to the Angel Island or Sausalito) in order to have a completely rewarding adventure. Once campers have enrolled, we'll communicate regarding the individual start and end times for each day via email.
It is essential that your child's bike have at least 6 gears (or more). We do not allow electric bikes. Each day, we'll be biking a variety of terrains, and your child's experience will be more rewarding with a versatile bike. Prior to the start of Nature Camp, we suggest you and your child (or a trained professional) do a complete tune-up of your child's bike. During our tune-up days (see description below), we'll also check your child's bike. We also do not recommend that students wear biking clips. It can be difficult for students to unclip quickly when riding in a group of bikes, leading to an injury.
The camp is open to rising 4th through 8th graders. Students must have completed third grade to be eligible for our camp. This is not a camp where we teach children to ride a bike. It is a camp where your child will gain confidence and experience from a variety of biking and hiking experiences. For the Advanced Riders session, only those students who have participated in Nature Camp before, or have shown us in a tune-up day ride that they are very strong riders, should enroll.
Students should have a backpack daily. We'll also be providing large boxes for student gear that we'll bring daily in our Nature Camp van. Each day, students should have their personal health gear (tissues, hand sanitizers, sunblock, mask if they want) as well as lunch, snacks, two bottles of water, their nature journal, a pencil, a beach towel (or other item to sit on at lunch), a lightweight jacket, and their Clipper card (see below). We ask that your child have sunscreen on before arriving at camp as we will be outside all day. We will have extra sunscreen for reapplication during the day, and we'll have multiple first aid supply kits. We also will be traveling with a bike locks, bike pumps, extra tubes, and extra water.
The Nature Camp Educators will offer a series of biking "tune-up" days on five Wednesdays (May 14, 21, 28 and June 4, 11) from 3:45 to 5:30 pm in the five weeks preceding the start of Nature Camp. This is an opportunity for students to get their bodies and their bikes fit for summer. Each "tune-up" session will be $50, and students can sign up in advance through Hillsborough Recreation for the days they'd like to join, regardless of whether they will be doing a summer session in June of Nature Camp.
As a special opportunity this year, Nature Camp is offering any student the opportunity of joining the week 1 Nature Campers as they journey down to San Gregorio Beach and then to Pescadero to pick berries. Look on the Hillsborough Recreation Site for this special day.
We all ride as a group, waiting at certain intervals along the route we have planned for the day. On all the biking days, we'll also have an adult in our Nature Camp van. Students can walk steep hills with the group if necessary or we'll pick up a student and his or her bike if the hill is too hard.
Certain downhill grades are more challenging than going uphill, and on the steeper grades, we have students walk their bikes. Then we release students one at a time, at safe intervals.
Keeping a nature journal is a practice that many famous naturalists have used, and we'll provide each child at the start of camp with their own nature journal. We ask that the nature journal and a pencil be tucked into your child's backpack daily. This allows children to reflect and sketch each day.
We ask all parents to purchase a youth Clipper card for use on our train and ferry trips. Loading the card with $30.00 should be a good starting amount. It can take some time to get a youth Clipper card, so we suggest applying as soon as possible. Look online here. You can also visit the SamTrans station in person in San Carlos and get a youth Clipper card--just be sure to bring your child's passport or birth certificate with you (to prove they are eligible for the youth discount).
By using CalTrain and ferries, we are able to expand our adventures as well as show students how to use public transportation. When using CalTrain, we will work as a team to get all the bikes on the bike train car in an efficient and orderly manner. We also will pass out to students bike tags; these tags allow any other train riders to know when we will be exiting the train.
Nature Camp is limited in numbers for each session for safety reasons. This prevents us from adding more students to spread out the costs.