Catoctin Quaker Camp (CQC) is a small, Quaker, residential, wilderness summer camp

Summer camp

Summer camp is a supervised program for children or teenagers conducted during the summer months in some countries. Children and adolescents who attend summer camp are known as campers....

 operated by Baltimore Yearly Meeting

Baltimore Yearly Meeting

Baltimore Yearly Meeting is a body of the Religious Society of Friends headquartered in Sandy Spring, Maryland that includes Friends from Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and the District of Columbia. It was the first Yearly Meeting founded in North America, meeting in May 1672...

 for Quaker and non-Quaker children aged 9–14. Catoctin is located off of Old Mink Farm Road, on Catoctin Mountain

Catoctin Mountain

Catoctin Mountain, along with the geologically associated Bull Run Mountains, comprises the easternmost mountain ridge of the Blue Ridge Mountains, which are in turn a part of the Appalachian Mountains range...

, near Frederick, Maryland

Frederick, Maryland

Frederick is a city in north-central Maryland. It is the county seat of Frederick County, the largest county by area in the state of Maryland. Frederick is an outlying community of the Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV Metropolitan Statistical Area, which is part of a greater...

. Children come to camp for two- or four-week sessions. The camp focuses on Quaker values of simplicity, equality, and peace, and the benefits of living in an intentional, child-centered, loving community. Campers are organized into age and ability appropriate cabin groups called units.

Each session consists of a number of days at camp as well as two short three-day trips, often canoeing

Canoeing

Canoeing is an outdoor activity that involves a special kind of canoe.Open canoes may be 'poled' , sailed, 'lined and tracked' or even 'gunnel-bobbed'....

, backpacking

Backpacking (wilderness)

Backpacking combines the activities of hiking and camping for an overnight stay in backcountry wilderness...

, rock climbing

Rock climbing

Rock climbing also lightly called 'The Gravity Game', is a sport in which participants climb up, down or across natural rock formations or artificial rock walls. The goal is to reach the summit of a formation or the endpoint of a pre-defined route without falling...

, tubing

Tubing

Tubing may refer to:* Tubing , flexible hose or pipe * Tubing , the act of riding an inner tube* Structural tubing* Plumbing tube used in domestic water systems* Inserting a tube* Brass instrument tubing...

, or participating in various other outdoor activities. Oldest campers participate in a ten-day-long trip, aptly named "The Ten Day", which is a journey into the mountains of Maryland

Maryland

Maryland is a U.S. state located in the Mid Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware to its east...

, Virginia

Virginia

The Commonwealth of Virginia , is a U.S. state on the Atlantic Coast of the Southern United States. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" and sometimes the "Mother of Presidents" after the eight U.S. presidents born there...

, Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania

The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...

, and West Virginia

West Virginia

West Virginia is a state in the Appalachian and Southeastern regions of the United States, bordered by Virginia to the southeast, Kentucky to the southwest, Ohio to the northwest, Pennsylvania to the northeast and Maryland to the east...

. In-camp activities include swimming in the lagoon (nicknamed the "goon"), arts and crafts, chores, games, sports, Quaker worship at the fire circle, singing, and other arts activities.

The camp property, owned by Baltimore Yearly Meeting since the mid 1950s, is protected by a conservation easement with the state of Maryland. It is home to several rare plant species as well as geological rarities such as Catoctin Greenstone, which can be found in the walls of the main lodge. The large preserved beams and rafters of the lodge are made from American Chestnut trunks formed before the chestnut blight

Chestnut blight

The pathogenic fungus Cryphonectria parasitica is a member of the ascomycota category, and is the main cause of chestnut blight, a devastating disease of the American chestnut tree that caused a mass extinction in the early 1900s of this once plentiful tree from its historic range in the eastern...

.

Baltimore Yearly Meeting has been operating summer camps in the region since the 1920s. Other camps currently operated by BYM include Shiloh Quaker Camp, near Charlottesville, Virginia

Charlottesville, Virginia

Charlottesville is an independent city geographically surrounded by but separate from Albemarle County in the Commonwealth of Virginia, United States, and named after Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, the queen consort of King George III of the United Kingdom.The official population estimate for...

; Opequon Quaker Camp, near Winchester, Virginia

Winchester, Virginia

Winchester is an independent city located in the northwestern portion of the Commonwealth of Virginia in the USA. The city's population was 26,203 according to the 2010 Census...

; and the Teen Adventure Program, near Lexington, Virginia

Lexington, Virginia

Lexington is an independent city within the confines of Rockbridge County in the Commonwealth of Virginia. The population was 7,042 in 2010. Lexington is about 55 minutes east of the West Virginia border and is about 50 miles north of Roanoke, Virginia. It was first settled in 1777.It is home to...

.