Programs For Teens

Hidden Valley Camp, established in 1948 on 350 acres near the Maine coast, hosts dynamic, creative programs for young people from around the world. Peter and Meg Kassen, HVC directors since 1988, have developed Hidden Valley Teen opportunities, recognizing that young people and their families value...

  • Small groups in which participants have a voice.
  • Challenges that safely go beyond teens' typical comfort zone.
  • Recognition of everyone's unique interests and accomplishments.
  • Understanding of teens' emerging capacity to know their strengths and pursue their goals.
  • Community ideals which foster productive relationships with peers and the larger world.
  • Guidance from gifted, "cool," well-prepared role models.
  • Amazing experiences that can only occur in a camp environment.

July 2018 AWACs

Hidden Valley is the only place on earth where I could truly be me. It gave me so much confidence. I was liked for who I was.
- HVC Teen Camper

Most of all, getting a teen girl away from her computer and phone, and away from the crazy peer pressure of image was so great for Nora. We live in the city where it's hard to turn off all the external messages about how to be. Being in the woods with friends and in this beautiful setting was obviously very restorative for Nora. She grew up a little bit. She came back smiling-- and glowing!
- Older Camper Parent

teens

Hidden Valley Alive

teen alive

HV Alive is our camp’s advanced program in the arts for teenagers. Create your own artists colony right here in the camp's 150-year-old restored farm cottage, Deer Meadows. HV Alive provides in-depth opportunities to explore the visual arts through pottery, stained glass, photography, and other media. We design group projects ranging from gallery installations to stage productions. We also visit galleries and studios to learn about the lives of local artists. Shakespeare plays, musical productions, the Dance Festival at Bates College and more. Read more here.

Everything you can imagine is real.
- Pablo Picasso

Hidden Valley Adventures

The complete Maine outdoor experience includes a wilderness canoe trip, rock climbing and mountain biking in Acadia National Park, whitewater rafting on the Kennebec River, sea kayaking, and a trip to Quebec City. Our adventurers are based in a log cabin on the summit of Hidden Valley's Ledge Mountain, overlooking our lake. From this beautiful site, campers experience exciting and challenging individual and group adventures.
Read more here.

It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there’s no knowing where you might be swept off to.
- Bilbo Baggins

Hidden Valley Community

community pole

The universal brotherhood of man is our most precious possession. - Mark Twain

Imagine a month to improve your leadership skills and use them to make important contributions to your community. Hidden Valley Community embraces a simple outdoor life wherein a small group of campers learn self sufficiency and make a home-away-from-home at a 17 acre, restored farm in our valley. Participants develop skills in team building, problem solving and communication. Then they venture into the larger community... The camp, where HV Community members create and lead programs for younger campers, and the rural area nearby where the group teaches at art centers, helps elderly farmers and maintains hiking trails. Join us and learn to take Hidden Valley's values - those of sharing, helping one another, and striving for one's personal best - out into the larger community. Read more here.

Since the day he came home he started volunteering for our towns old home days, event manning game booths for children. He would rather walk to the town centre than ask for a ride. Not that he wasn't before, but he is so outwardly giving and empathetic to others and he has a clear positive attitude about all that is in front of him. He is conscious of this self control and that spills over to this eating habits, exercise and ownership.
- HVC Parent

Teen Program Options

HV Adventures – Wilderness adventures in Maine and Quebec.
HV Alive – Advanced performing and creative arts.
HVC AWAC’s are “Awaiting Work As Counselors.”
HV Community – Service and leadership development.
HV Apprentices – In-depth commitment in one of the camp’s major programs

Too Old To Be a Camper?

We hear this question often and now have an answer for campers 14-16 years old... An array of dynamic month-long programs providing additional adventure, friendship, and enrichment to older campers within the HVC family. And they are all based on our 350-acre property.

hiking

What People Say

I don't know what I want to do with my life, but I do know that whatever it is, I want it to feel like I do when I'm at HVC.
- Older Camper

boy with backpack

The skepticism of youth signals the beginning of a search for something actually worth trusting, both within one's own psyche and the world. That's why teens, supposedly stuck in life's lost years, are often so unequivocal about what they love and what they hate, and so frustrated when they feel misunderstood. The adolescent spirit is not the spirit of the lost. It is the conviction that you are not lost - that wandering has a purpose and that what you deserve more than anything is the freedom to walk a while on your own path.
- Ann Powers

She's sees the "Camp" friends regularly now and really enjoys their company. There's a maturity and a level of respect that goes beyond the typical high school sophomore whenever I see this group together.
- Older Camper Parent

running teens

Hidden Valley is the only place on earth where I could truly be me. It gave me so much confidence. I was liked for who I was.
- Older Camper

two teen girls

This summer was the absolute best for Jeremy. I was worried beforehand, that he might have outgrown camp, but this summer experience was just what he needed to elevate his self esteem.
- Older Camper Parent

Read about the Top 10 Reasons Teen Should Attend Summer Camp, written by an HVC Staffer