The High Standards Vault Camp is located on a beautiful wooded peninsula that extends a half mile into Panther Pond. The 90 acre peninsula is covered with oak, maple, birch, beech, hemlock, and white pine trees.
Pole vaulting will take place on a raised runway on our lakeside athletic fields, where a cool light breeze comes in off the water. Other pole vaulting drills will include underwater vaulting drills in our warm lake water, swing-up drills on our climbing ropes and pull-up bars, and planting drills on our fine-sand beach.
Strength & conditioning exercises are conducted on our expansive athletic field, grass hillsides, forest trails, and natural beach.
The field and hillsides where many of our exercises are conducted lie on sandy soil that drains quickly. The edges of the 5,000 square-yard field are shaded by towering pine trees. Speed and conditioning games such as dodgeball, soccer, lacrosse, touch football, tug-of-war, and capture the flag are played in the field. The slopes of the hillside allow us to conduct hill sprinting exercises on a variety of gentle uphill and downhill grades.
The
forest trail system criss-crosses the peninsula and follows the shore of the lake providing
spectacular views for athletes who are doing warm-up or conditioning runs
through the woods. Speed games such as tennis ball fights are
played along the trail system.
The
natural beach is flat, wide, fifty meters long, and composed of fine
golden sand that makes it a
great site for swimming, beach volleyball, and running drills.
The
camp dining hall sits on the shore so that every table has a view of
Panther Pond through large screened windows. Campers
stay overnight in ten airy screened cabins that are as close as fifteen yards from
the beach and no farther than forty yards from the beach.
Girls' cabins are on one side of the beach, and boys' cabins are on the other. Cabins are supervised by the residential counselor staff every night. Campers fall asleep at night to the sound of breezes rustling through the pine trees and waves lapping up against the shore.
Vaulters should bring a helmet and their own poles if they can.