YMCA Camp Colman — Local services in Artondale

Visited Camp Colman as a chaperone for a school trip. While the kids had a blast overall, I felt like the camp overall was lacking. I felt there were too many issues such as no hot water, cold food, leaky roofs, and strange food waste policies.

To start, meals: during our time here they adhered to their ORT policy which attempts to reduce food waste by celebrating cabin groups who finish all the food they take. Sounds good on the surface, but this promotes eating disorders to children's who may feel embarrassed to eat or shamed into not taking any food at all. They may feel like they are being watched or judged by what they eat or don't eat. Also, the food itself was sometimes not appetizing. For instance, the Eggo waffles served one morning were not toasted, the sausages were cold, the orange chicken was awful, and their idea of steamed vegetables were diced pineapples in a bowl with one small stock of cauliflower in it.

Our cabin lacked any hot water, it was never repaired through out our stay despite our reporting of the issue on the first night. Aside from that, the cabins were nice, though it would have been nicer if their were seating on the decks. Also, when it rained, the main lodge leaked from the skylight onto the tables of food.

The activities were ok. Some were educational, some challenged the students to attempt activities they may otherwise never thought they could do, such as rock climbing, or archery.

The "Night Hike" was underwhelming and amounted to a short walk to a residential area where we stood and stared at houses while we ate mints for about 30 mins and shined flashlights over a fence at trees in silence while we listened for animals but could only hear cars, trucks, a helicopter and an airplane.

But ultimately this is just an adult looking objectively at the camp. But the kids had fun getting to be outside of the school with their classmates and have a memorable camp experience and the YMCA, the counselors, teachers, and chaperones made sure of it. I'm still glad I and my kid attended. But if I were to send my kids to a camp again in the future, on my own dime, I'd probably look for a camp other...

hi!! I am coming back to this camp on the 21st and i am so excited, for everybody reading this, i'd recommend this camp. There is amazing food, and they also have lots of good foods for children that have any dietary restrictions, they also use "goop" instead of syrup for like french toast / waffles or stuff, and goop is like butter mixed with i think brown sugar and its really tasty! I also think arrival is pretty nicely organized. Last year when we arrived we drove into the camp and when we made it to the basketball court, they check your tempature and check for lice, then you get your bags, say goodbye to your parents and go stand with your counselor and cabinmates while we wait for everyone to arrive!! the cabins are very nice quality, i believe they can fit 14 people (12 campers, 2 counselors i believe) and then there is like sort of a balcony where people put on sunscreen and bug spray, there is also a bathroom and it's pretty nice! only 1 shower though, so only one person can shower at a time. The wakeup time is 7:30 AM usually and i believe lights out is 10:00 PM this year. We have lots of cool activities to do, I believe all cabins get together and play a game at around 7:00 PM after dinner, but when i get back from camp i will update this. Thank you for being such an...

A really beautiful place for camping — peaceful and quite. It’s a great spot to relax and enjoy the environment. However, my experience with the staff wasn’t very pleasant. At first, they seemed helpful, but later some things happened that made me feel uncomfortable and unsafe. So we left camp a day earlier to avoid more trouble. One of the staff members had made a false claims against a guest just because the guest had asked her for her guidance while he was last around the camp ground area. They first called the police to arrest an old 72-75 years old man. Then they said they are sorry; it was a misunderstanding and the staff member who accused the man and made a false claim against him has mental health issues. They said that the same staff had been made false claims against other guests before which is really disturbing. Why should they hire someone in such a place and keep them as their employee while the employee creates trouble not once, but over and over?! I hope the management pays more attention to how guests are treated, because the place itself is amazing, but people’s behavior can truly change the...