About
Elk Trail Outdoor School offers week long residential outdoor school programs that include activities such as team building, stream morphology, and outdoor learning about soil, water, plants, and animals. The program uses play spaces, an archery range, low and high ropes courses, gaga pits, and a large group campfire gathering space as part of its activities.
• Ages: 10–12 years old
• Schedule: Week long residential outdoor school programs
Elk Trail Outdoor School is part of a YMCA Outdoor School option that follows the YMCA mission of fostering connections, strengthening communities, and introducing young people to the outdoors, often for the first time. The program is led in part by Gary “Flame” Taylor, Associate Executive Director.
The site history includes the closure of the Elk Trail School in June 2012 and a partnership between Eagle Point School District 9 and the Rogue Valley Family YMCA beginning in 2014. In March 2020 the School Board voted to give the property to the YMCA, and the YMCA took possession in July 2020. From 2021 through 2025, the property has gone through ongoing renovation and development, including grant submissions, a property clean-up and fire suppression project by BSA Scout Troop 7 and American Heritage Girls Troop OR4519, the arrival of on-site caretakers, a feasibility study with Pinnacle Architecture, Inc., YMCA camp staff training, YMCA Day Camp day trips, purchase of adjacent property bringing the site to 12 acres, conversion of a house to camper housing, opening of a cafeteria to cook and serve groups, completion of Cozy Elk Bunkrooms, house renovations, hosting of summer camp programs and Outdoor School field trips, and installation of a new roof on the Dining Hall in December 2025.
Community involvement includes the long-term partnership between Eagle Point School District 9 and the Rogue Valley Family YMCA to offer programs such as youth sports, on-site afterschool programs, Emergency Child Care, and summer Day Camps. State funding has been dedicated to make sure that all Oregon 5th and 6th grade students have a residential outdoor education experience, and there are letters of support from the Jackson County Commissioners and for Outdoor School in Southern Oregon.
Last updated June 11, 2026.
• Ages: 10–12 years old
• Schedule: Week long residential outdoor school programs
Elk Trail Outdoor School is part of a YMCA Outdoor School option that follows the YMCA mission of fostering connections, strengthening communities, and introducing young people to the outdoors, often for the first time. The program is led in part by Gary “Flame” Taylor, Associate Executive Director.
The site history includes the closure of the Elk Trail School in June 2012 and a partnership between Eagle Point School District 9 and the Rogue Valley Family YMCA beginning in 2014. In March 2020 the School Board voted to give the property to the YMCA, and the YMCA took possession in July 2020. From 2021 through 2025, the property has gone through ongoing renovation and development, including grant submissions, a property clean-up and fire suppression project by BSA Scout Troop 7 and American Heritage Girls Troop OR4519, the arrival of on-site caretakers, a feasibility study with Pinnacle Architecture, Inc., YMCA camp staff training, YMCA Day Camp day trips, purchase of adjacent property bringing the site to 12 acres, conversion of a house to camper housing, opening of a cafeteria to cook and serve groups, completion of Cozy Elk Bunkrooms, house renovations, hosting of summer camp programs and Outdoor School field trips, and installation of a new roof on the Dining Hall in December 2025.
Community involvement includes the long-term partnership between Eagle Point School District 9 and the Rogue Valley Family YMCA to offer programs such as youth sports, on-site afterschool programs, Emergency Child Care, and summer Day Camps. State funding has been dedicated to make sure that all Oregon 5th and 6th grade students have a residential outdoor education experience, and there are letters of support from the Jackson County Commissioners and for Outdoor School in Southern Oregon.
Last updated June 11, 2026.
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