TREE CAMP DETAILS
Tree Camp is a land-based, environmental education program where you will have the opportunity to become familar with all 100 species of trees that are native to the Piedmont region of central North Carolina. That's right, there are approximately 100 species of trees in this area and it is not an impossible task to become familiar with all of them - if you have a mentor!
My mentors in the early 1990s were Duke Forest Resource Manager Fred White, Duke Botany Professor Bob Wlbur and NC Botanical Garden Educator Dot Wilbur-Brooks.
Tree Camp sessions at West Point on the Eno RIver park in North Durham will begin May 1 and continue every Saturday through the end of August. Riverdave will be available for Tree Camp on other days of the week as well, but by special request only. Please feel free to contact me if there is a particular week day that works better for you and your group. The price is $30 per person for each five hour session. You may sign up as an individual, couple or group with a maximum size of twelve individuals.
Tree Camp is an adult, year-round day camp, offered to those who are eager to expand their knowledge of local natural history. High schoolers are welcome as well, if they are serious about their nature experience.
Besides trees, we will also touch on herbaceous plants, insects, herps, birds and mammals as we encounter them in the context of our study of trees. A cross-cultural understanding of how trees are experienced by non-western peoples may broaden our perspective as well.
Through decades of experience, we have found that getting on intimate terms with local trees can become a wide open window for further nature exploration and for personal healing and growth of all kinds.
The format for learning these trees consists of a five hour, leisurely walking event at various forested natural forested areas in Durham and Orange Counties. Day campers will gather at 9AM and finish by 2PM. Participants are expected to be in reasonable physical condition so as to walk between two miles and three miles. We will picnic in the woods together along the way.
A checklist of our area's trees is provided on this website. Each participant is invited to copy, paste, print out and bring this checklist, along with note taking material and a picnic lunch. Group size will be limited to approximately a dozen participants.
In order to provide day campers with a fuller exposure to a variety of trees in different settings, we will vary the location through the seasons. Summer 2009 Tree Camp sessions were held at West Point on the Eno Park. Fall 2009 sessions were along Durham's Ellerbe Creek Greenway Trail. Winter 2010 sessions found tree campers at the Occoneechee Mountain Natural Area in Hillsborough.
And as an added benefit to all Tree Camp participants, at no extra charge, Riverdave will continue to make himself available as a mentor for tree identification, either by phone or through photos received by email, until all the trees on the check list have been mastered by each camper!
Reservations are required, so please see the reservations page.
If you have further questions, comments or feedback about Tree Camp, please see the contact page.
Photo: Tree Camp group at West Point on the Eno Park, May 2009
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