Trackers Earth

Why Choose Trackers

Safe Camps
Trackers is a leader in outdoor safety and learning. We set the standard for Portland and beyond.

Best Instructors
Our instructors are experts who teach real skills. We choose our staff through intensive interviews and background checks.

Making Friends
Our camps create a community where your child makes new friends while having fantastic adventures.

Truly Original Adventure & Fun
Want to join a Wizards Academy? Train Stealth, Archery and Wilderness Survival? Become a Forest Ninja? Trackers has been the original for such adventures since 2004. We apply this experience to create the best curriculum around.

Real Skills
We offer real skills that help develop confidence and competence. Our private locations are truly unique to the world of day and overnight camps, allowing kids to have a campfire, explore off trail and build a shelter.

Best Hours
Our days provide longer hours than most camps. Working parents get flexible check-in from 7:30am - 8:30am and flexible check-out from 3:30pm - 4pm. You can also add our affordable Extended Camp until 6pm.

Award-Winning
Trackers Earth has been awarded Best Camp with many parent magazines, including Metro Parent. We have also won an award for Creative Programming with the American Camp Association.

Day Camps offer 3 convenient Portland locations.
Overnight Camps take place on our epic 80-acre wilderness site.

SE Portland Trackers Earth - 4617 SE Milwaukie Ave Portland, Oregon
NE Portland Grant High School - 2245 NE 36th Ave Portland, Oregon
W Portland Sylvan Middle School - 1849 SW 58th Ave Portland, Oregon
Overnight Camp Trackers - E Marmot Road Sandy, Oregon

Times

Day Camps
7:30 AM - 8:30 AM FREE and flexible morning check-in
8:30 AM - 3:30 PM Buses depart at 8:30 AM to travel to outdoor adventure
3:30 PM - 4:00 PM Free and flexible afternoon check-out
4:00 PM - 6:00 PM Pre-registered after camp (optional)

Overnight Camps
Sunday - Friday Drop-off at our SE Portland location, we shuttle to Sandy, Oregon
Weekends Optional weekend adventure overnight camps available!

Camp Age Groups
We separate campers into grade groups. For summer camps, choose the grade your camper is entering the following fall.

Age 4-Grade K Base and mobile camps that explore nearby nature parks.
Grade 1 Mobile day camps that teach the beginnings of new and fun skills.
Grade 2-3 Mobile day camps that truly immerse campers in an adventure.
Grade 4-5 Mobile day camps that develop team skills in a rich learning environments.
Grade 5-8 Mobile day or overnight camps that teach in-depth craft and outdoor skills.
Grade 9-12 Overnight or day camps with intensive training in outdoor leadership and lore.

Camp Themes

Trackers offers the widest range of themes of any camp in Portland (and possibly the Known Universe). Plus, each week is a different adventure. In Wilderness Survival Camps you might train Stealth, Archery & Wilderness Survival and in another you get to build Fires, Forts & Shelters. Choose your camp theme, choose your adventure.

Young Children: Story Adventures (Ages 4 - Grades K only)

Young Children: Forest Camps (Ages 4 - Grades K only)

Farm and Wildcraft Camps

Wilderness Survival Camps

Wizards Academy Camps

Elves, Wizards and Dragons: Role-playing Camps

Ninja Camps

Spy Camps

Zombie Survival Camps

Fishing Camps

River Rat Camps

Archery Camps

Superhero and Supervillain Camps

Pirate Camps

Kayak Camps

Film Camps

Blacksmithing Camps

Paintball Camps

Overnight Camps

About our Staff

The full-time educators of Trackers Earth Portland includes experienced skills instructors on the leading edge of place-based education. We are a family of professionals whose goal is superlative competence in our field.

At Trackers, we have built a long-term, stable team who develops, implements and teaches the best camps around. In order to do that, we must elevate the profession of outdoor education. This goes beyond relying on seasonal staff and into providing more people with a sustainable livelihood. We work to provide growing numbers of year-round, full-time positions for outdoor educators to the benefit of them and the families we serve. Because of this stability we believe Trackers staff is more mature and experienced than typical summer camp staff.

We have nearly every person on our full-time program staff interview any potential seasonal staff. This means an average of fifteen individuals typically have to say "Yes" to an applicant before we hire them. Our full-time program staff are not only long-term educators, they are coordinators who have profound experience with Trackers programs in the field. They know who they need on their team to do a great job. With this, every applicant must pass a thorough background check based on their fingerprints.

On site, our ratios of paid instructional staff to students average 1:6 or 1:7 for younger kids and 1:6 or 1:8 for older tweens and teens. Our younger camp groups always have a separate Coordinator accompanying them in the field. This is typically a year-round staff person who helps our instructors offer the best camps possible.

Finally, Trackers Earth is a strong advocate for both better wages and more stable, long-term employment for outdoor educators. Other camps may take advantage of a minimum-wage exemption (see ORS 653.020 (10) in order to pay a sub-minimum wage. Under Oregon's current wage laws this allows those camps to pay whatever rate they wish to set, often being as low as $150 - $250 per week. Some even utilize unpaid, volunteer labor. Our average weekly salary for lead instructors is more than double that. We believe that by paying better wages, we cultivate better instructional staff charged with the well-being of the children and families we serve.

Learn more about our year-round staff.

Portland Camp Fair

April 30, 2016, 10 AM - 3 PM
Trackers Earth | 4617 SE Milwaukie Avenue, Portland, Oregon

Come learn more about camps in Portland.
Meet local program coordinators and directors.
Each camp offers activities based on their theme.

Come visit the "Best Camps in the Known Universe" at the Portland Camp Fair. This FREE event gives you a personal and hands-on opportunity to experience all our camps have to offer. The event includes interactive areas highlighting Trackers Earth's over 30 different day and overnight camps, providing a chance for kids and adults to learn a bit about everything from wilderness survival to archery.

Featuring 14 areas with activities, including...

Rangers: woodcarving, fire building, camouflage
Wilders: homesteading projects & animals, fiber arts
Mariners: kayak building, knot tying, fishing/casting demos
Artisans: secret agent skills, ninja martial arts, wizard duels
Archery: indoor range for older kids, foam arrow range for younger kids
Blacksmithing: learn to forge (grades 4 and up)
Panels: About our teen programs, mentoring philosophy and more.

Plus paintball, zombies, and much more!

The Portland Camp Fair runs April 30 from 10am - 3pm and is free for all. Campers are encouraged to bring a friend and share their stories from Trackers camps. On-site registration will be available, so families will have a guided and easy opportunity to enroll in their favorite camps.

More info at Portlandcampfair.com