Spring and Fall Program
Great Basin Outdoor School operates spring program from late April-June and fall program from September-October. Studies focus on forest and wildlife ecology, environmental awareness, team-building, geology, astronomy, and lots and lots of fun. Students work in trail groups which use the Camp Galilee site, Spooner Lake, and a boat ride on Lake Tahoe as their outdoor classroom.
Camp Galilee
The Camp Galilee site offers two dorm buildings for students, two cabins for students, a teacher cabin, dining hall, and lodge building. The dorms are divided into two cabins for a group of about eleven students and a supervising mentor. The cabins include bunk beds, full bathrooms, showers, and heating. The dining hall offers healthy and kid-friendly fare, and meals are served and eaten family style with good table manners and conversation. Recreation options include basketball, volleyball, tetherball, ping pong, game areas, gathering spots, crafts, and indoor space for inclement weather. Click here to get directions and see photos of Camp Galilee.
The Natural Environment
Camp Galilee is set in a Jeffrey pine forest sloping down to the shore of Lake Tahoe at 6229 feet. Though the site is small, it is remarkably beautiful and program participants often find themselves staring out at the lake, content to just be there. The lake shore includes sandy beach and shingled metamorphic cobbles. To expand Camp Galilee, GBOS offers a field trip to Spooner Lake and a boat trip with Marine Research & Education, Inc.
Spooner Lake
The Spooner Lake area, at 7000 feet, is the most diverse instructional area available to GBOS. The lake environment provides opportunity for wildlife and water studies, with osprey, hawks, ducks, geese, shorebirds, and aquatic invertebrates and trout in the lake. The water quality in the lake changes throughout the season as the water level drops. Bird life is abundant in the Spooner Lake area, with water, shoreline, wet and dry meadow, riparian, sagebrush and bitterbrush, aspen grove, Jeffrey pine forest, and white fir/aspen forest environments available. The use of binoculars is appropriate for studying bird species and behavior.
The north shore forest is dry with primarily Jeffrey pine and scattered
Lodgepole pine. The south shore is much wetter, with abundant aspen, white fir, and Jeffrey
pine mixed in. About half way around the lake is a small stream with riparian and wet meadow zones,
including a number of unique plants.
Three sets of interpretive signs are available: the interpretive picnic area, the bark beetle trail, and signs along the lake loop. The forest at Spooner Lake was clear-cut during the Comstock era, so no conifers older than 1880 are present. The forest is fairly even aged but some younger trees are present. Nevada State Parks has a prescribed fire program to reduce fuel accumulation, and this practice is most obvious to the west of Highway 28 (the highway may not be crossed due to traffic hazard but the burned areas are visible coming on the bus, and looking across the highway).
The
bedrock is granite and only exposed in a few places, but other earth science topics such as soils, lake and meadow morphology, and weather and climate are available.
The loop trail circles the lake is two miles long and takes about one hour to walk, exclusive of instructional time. There are also connections to the Tahoe Rim Trail and the Marlette Lake road/trail. Since the forest is open in many areas, it is also possible to travel cross-country away from the trail system.
Bus transportation from Camp Galilee to Spooner Lake is provided by Douglas County School District.
Marine Research Boat Trip at Zephyr Cove
Marine Research and Education hosts trips on the Prophet, a fishing and research boat used to introduce students to the ecology and protection of Lake Tahoe. From the boat students observe and measure with a Secchi disk the clarity of Lake Tahoe, learn about the human activities which have reduced and threaten this world-renowned clarity, find out about the food chain from phytoplankton to Kokanee salmon, and enjoy this "on the lake" experience which is new to most of our students. In addition to the on the water learning, Marine Research uses a Lake Tahoe watershed model to demonstrate lake impacts and solutions.
Zephyr Cove also provides a great place to study geology and geomorphology.
Bus transportation from Camp Galilee to Zephyr Cove is provided by Douglas County School District.
Sample Schedule
7:00 Rise and shine!
8:00 Breakfast
9:00 AM Field Study - rotation of geology, water, forest or wildlife ecology
12:00 Lunch
1:00 PM Field Study - second rotation
Afternoon: electives, recreation, journaling, meeting with teachers, and/or cabin time
6:00 Dinner
7:00 Evening Activities - night walk, astronomy, and/or campfire
10:00 Bed
For a detailed schedule, see Camp Galilee schedules.