Upper School Leadership Trips 

Upper School Boys Build Friendship and Make Memories on September Camping Trips.

Each September, boys in the eighth and ninth grades spend three days of team building while engaging in outdoor activities at camps in New Hampshire and Maine, respectively. The trips reflect a long-standing tradition of Upper School boys beginning their year together off campus. Eighth graders and their advisors head to Windsor Mountain in Windsor, NH, where facilities including high and low ropes courses and a waterfront that invites canoeing and swimming allow boys to learn more about each other and their advisors, and to challenge themselves at a variety of games and other activities. The focus of the eighth grade trip is on boys getting to know their advisor and their fellow advisees, but campers also have time to connect as a class.

Ninth graders and their advisors travel to Camp Caribou in Winslow, ME, as they have for many years, to enjoy its waterfront location on a 200-acre peninsula. They hold meaningful conversations about leadership, set goals as individuals and as a class, and test their limits on ropes courses, on a zip line that runs over part of private Lake Pattee, and in games and other activities, which help them galvanize as a class.

At both sites, Fenn is the only group on the grounds during their three days, so the boys receive the undivided attention of camp staff members who are experienced in working with young people and who have EMT training. The boys and advisors stay in cabins and share meals with camp counselors in the lodge dining hall. Each camping trip culminates with a bonfire underneath the night sky and the sharing of songs and reflections on the three days the boys spent together.

Going off with their peers to Windsor and Caribou is one of the experiences boys cite as unforgettable when they reflect on their Fenn years. They return having had conversations they can draw on for the rest of the year, and some of them have forged friendships that are sustained for the rest of their Fenn career and beyond.