For 100 years, a patch of forest in the San Bernardino Mountains has been quietly changing the lives of Whittier kids. This is the story of Camp Arbolado.
There are places that leave a mark on you. Not because something dramatic happened there, but because something quietly essential did — a moment of independence, a friendship forged over a campfire, a morning in the mountains that reminded you the world is bigger and more beautiful than you’d realized. For generations of Whittier families, that place has been YMCA Camp Arbolado.
This year, Camp Arbolado turns 100. And in a world that feels like it moves faster every day, a century of uninterrupted service to a community is worth stopping to honor.
Where It All Began
Camp Arbolado’s roots stretch back to the early 1920s, when the YMCA of Greater Whittier made a decision that would shape the community for the next century: to create an outdoor retreat in the mountains where young people could grow, explore, and belong.
By 1925, that vision had become a reality. Nestled in the stunning San Bernardino National Forest at the foot of the San Gorgonio Wilderness — just 90 minutes from Los Angeles — Camp Arbolado opened its gates for the first time. It was a world away from the city streets of Whittier, and that was exactly the point.
In the decades that followed, the camp weathered the Great Depression, World War II, and every transformation that came with a rapidly changing Southern California. Through all of it, Camp Arbolado kept showing up — summer after summer, generation after generation — doing what it had always done: taking kids out of their comfort zones and bringing them home more confident than when they left.
A Century of Campers
Think about what 100 years of summers actually means. It means grandparents who remember their first night in a cabin, now sending their grandchildren to sleep in those same mountains. It means counselors who were once campers themselves, passing on the same values of courage, community, and character they first learned around a campfire at Arbolado. It means Whittier families whose connection to this place spans three and four generations.
The Camp Arbolado Alumni Association exists precisely because these bonds don’t fade. United in a shared effort to document the long and important history of the camp, the Alumni Association has kept that thread of connection alive across the decades — honoring not just the place, but the people whose lives were shaped by it.
What Makes Camp Arbolado Endure
In an era when kids’ schedules are packed with structured activities and screens compete for every spare moment of attention, Camp Arbolado offers something increasingly rare: genuine wilderness. Campers ages 8 to 16 live in cabins with about 10 children their own age, supervised by two adult volunteer cabin counselors, far from the noise and notifications of everyday life.
No curated playlist. No social media. Just the San Gorgonio Wilderness, new friends, and the slow, irreplaceable process of discovering what you’re made of.
It sounds simple. But the families who have been sending their children here for 100 years know it is anything but ordinary.
The Celebration: Alumni Weekend, September 12–14
To mark this extraordinary milestone, the YMCA of Greater Whittier is hosting a special 100 Year Alumni Weekend from September 12th through 14th, 2026. Former campers and their families are invited to return to the forest — to walk the trails they once walked, reconnect with old friends, and celebrate a shared history that belongs to the entire Whittier community.
Whether you attended Camp Arbolado fifty years ago or last summer, this is a once-in-a-century invitation to be part of something that has mattered to so many for so long.
Be Part of the Next 100 Years
The best way to honor 100 years of Camp Arbolado is to make sure the next 100 are just as rich. If your child has never experienced camp in these mountains, this is the year to change that. If you’re an alumnus who hasn’t been back in years, September is your reason to return.
