199: When Good Intentions Go Bad. Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument.

National Park After Dark

Audioboom Studios

True Crime, Places & Travel, Wilderness, Society & Culture, Sports

4.8 • 4.6K Ratings

🗓️ 15 January 2024

⏱️ 98 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Wilderness Therapy – some praise it, others shame it. In the 1980’s Steve Cartisano created the Challenger Foundation, the wilderness therapy camp that promised to reform wayward teens. It seemed like a perfect solution for concerned parents until kids claimed abuse, and others died while in camp care. Today we venture to Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument to understand how Hell Camp earned its name.

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Sources: Hell Camp: Teen Nightmare, Rolling Stone , Desert News, Variety Magazine, Outside Magazine, BLM, JSTOR Daily, Daily Mail

Transcript

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0:00.0	Summer Camp, an iconic American tradition.
0:05.0	Every year about 26 million children attend roughly 15,000 day and overnight summer camps across the United States to develop new
0:14.0	friendships, gain independence, and explore new interests and activities.
0:18.1	From tent camping, talent shows, arts and crafts, day hikes and water sports, time spent away at
0:25.0	camp for many is a memory to be cherished.
0:28.7	The first summer camps appeared in the 1870s, and as one early camp founder phrased it, summer camp would save humanity from dying of
0:37.6	indoorness. In 1900 there were less than a hundred camps in the US.
0:43.0	Less than two decades later, there were more than a thousand.
0:47.0	Camp was a place to focus on art, playtime, and activities that would soon be lost in adulthood.
0:54.3	For most of American adolescents, getting a chance to attend summer camp was an Eden, but for
1:00.4	others, it was pure hell.
1:06.3	Welcome to National Park After Dark. And the I'm so excited we're finally doing this episode because you have been hipping.
1:30.0	I'm so excited we're finally doing this episode because you have been hyping it up for over a week now.
1:36.4	Well, I banned Cassie from watching the documentary that this story is based on.
1:43.2	The first time I actually wanted to watch something
1:45.4	and you're like, no.
1:46.4	Please don't.
1:47.2	Yeah.
1:48.3	So this story is probably going to be on the top of mind
1:52.4	for a lot of people who have the same interests as us and
1:55.5	have access to Netflix. The documentary that I am referring to is it's in the top 10 right now it's called Hell Camp Teen Nightmare
2:05.7	and it's been flashing in Cassie's face for the last two weeks and I'm like please don't watch
	...

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