Welcome To Camp Hi-Sierra

Scout Summer Camp in California’s Sierra Nevada, Since 1949

Camp Hi-Sierra is the summer camp of the Silicon Valley Monterey Bay Council, Scouting America. Scouts have been making the drive up the mountain since 1949, and once you’re here it’s easy to see why they keep coming back. Camp sits on more than 100 acres in the Stanislaus National Forest near Pinecrest Lake, at 5,000 feet, with the North Fork Tuolumne River running right through the middle of it. Days are warm, nights are cool, and the stars out here are unreal. Ask anyone who has camped with us and they’ll tell you the same thing: Hi-Sierra feels like a home away from home.

Merit Badges That Feel Like Adventure, Not Homework

We offer more than 50 merit badges across six weeks of nationally accredited summer programming. Scouts can climb our 50 foot climbing tower, swim, row, and sail at the waterfront, and try every shooting sport we can fit on the mountain: archery, rifle, shotgun, black powder, even cowboy action. At Foxfire, they’ll hammer hot steel at a real blacksmith forge. And when the sun goes down, our new observatory turns those dark Sierra skies into an astronomy classroom. First year campers get their start on the Trail to Eagle, and older Scouts find bigger challenges that bring them back every summer.

Your Basecamp for Yosemite and Gold Country

Camp Hi-Sierra is the closest Scouting America camp to Yosemite National Park. In the summer, the YARTS bus runs from nearby Sonora straight into Yosemite Valley with park admission included in the fare, so a Yosemite day trip is an easy add before or after your week at camp. Closer to camp, Pinecrest Lake is ten minutes away for swimming, paddling, and trout fishing. Dodge Ridge’s summer trails are twenty minutes up the road, and the Gold Rush towns of Columbia and Jamestown, where the steam trains of Railtown 1897 still run, are about an hour down the hill.

Who Camps Here

Everyone. Scouts BSA troops, Scouts attending on their own as provisional campers, and families from all over Northern California and beyond. We run dedicated sessions for Venturers, for older Scouts knocking out Eagle required merit badges at Eagle Achievement Camp, and for Cub Scouts and Webelos getting their very first taste of summer camp. In the fall, winter, and spring, camp is open for group rentals to Scout units, schools, churches, and outdoor organizations.

75+ Years of Campfires and Counting

The Tuolumne Band of Mi-wuk people lived on this land for thousands of years, and you can still see their grinding holes in the rocks around camp. In 1949, Edward Jenness sold the valley to the council for ten dollars so it could become a Scout camp. Today, three and four generations of the same families camp here, singing the same campfire songs, eating family style in the dining hall, celebrating Friday’s Western BBQ, and earning their place in the Saga of Hi-Sierra.

Ready to see it for yourself? Come camp with us.