High adventure programs of the Order of the Arrow

The Order of the Arrow in the Boy Scouts of America, in its focus on service, contains four different high adventure programs at the national level that focus on conservation. These programs occur at the four national high adventure bases that the Boy Scouts own. They are only open to youth aged 14 to 20, with specific ages varying by program, and are available at a substantially lower price than other programs at the base. They each include a period of service and a trek period during which the participants get to plan their own routes and experience the best of the bases.

The first program that the Order of the Arrow established is the Trail Crew trek at Philmont Scout Ranch in New Mexico. The program, started in 1995, is held in multiple sessions every summer. Each session is a fourteen-day program for Order of the Arrow members aged 16 to 20 that gives participants an opportunity to work on various conservation projects around the ranch. Participants build trail for seven days and then go on a seven-day trek throughout Philmont. Many Order of the Arrow lodges and sections offer scholarships to Order of the Arrow members.

After the success of the Trail Crew program, the Order of the Arrow established another program following the same model at the Northern Tier National High Adventure Bases in Minnesota. Instead of hiking and backpacking as in Trail Crew, the participants use canoes for transportation. Their work occurs in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness in the Superior National Forest. Since its inception, the program has worked on some of the most treacherous portage trails in the area including the notorious Birch to Frog and Ensign to Boot portages. In the summer of 2007, the program did its first work in Canada on the Big Knife portage on the Canada–US border.

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