Questions Parents Frequently Ask

Read about our registration system here.

Check out our dates and prices.

Read about how to apply for a scholarship.

We recommend a trunk that is no taller than 15 inches and no longer than 34 inches. FYI, we prefer camp trunks over suitcases because they are generally larger and make it easier for campers to keep personal items consolidated and easy to find.

Our overall camper-to-counselor ratio is approximately one to four.

We encourage you to contact your camper through letters, care packages, or email messages accessible through your account. We do not encourage phone calls or allow visits because we have found that this disrupts the camp and camper experience. We are fully conscious of our responsibility for the care of campers, and we take this responsibility very seriously.

If you are trying to contact a camper who is not your child, the camper’s parent will need to purchase an email package and invite you as a guest.

No. We require campers to leave all electronic devices at home. We do not have cell phone reception in the Canyon, so cell phones will not work for making calls or sending texts. Any devices that are brought to camp will be discretely confiscated and returned at the end of the camper’s session.

Why no devices? Our goal is for campers to build significant relationships during their time at camp as well as truly benefit from spending time in God’s beautiful creation. Experience has taught us that screens and electronic devices at camp can serve as a relational block. Camp is an incredible opportunity to unplug from technology for a time and we believe that experiences like this are increasingly rare and therefore even more important for today’s youth.

We understand that many campers wish to use their smartphones as cameras. Our media team will provide high-quality photos and video of your campers session. If additional personal pictures are desired, we encourage campers to bring inexpensive digital or disposable cameras. We have also made disposable cameras available for purchase in our camp store.

Care Packages are fun and a great way to communicate with your camper. Fill them with your camper’s favorite things, including favorite foods. Check out The Makings of a Great Care Package for lots of good ideas and more info!

At Singing Hills, daily snacks and drinks at the camp store, Cantina, are provided and that cost is included in the registration fee. Campers do not need to bring cash to camp. Note: The Singing Hills Cantina also offers clothing and other merchandise on Opening and Closing Days for parents to purchase.

Echo Valley offers an on-site general store, Sugar Shack, where campers are given the opportunity to purchase candy, snacks, clothing and other merchandise. Parents can log into their accounts and load money on a camper’s itinerary for campers to spend. On average, campers spend $2-$4 per day on snacks and drinks. Campers are discouraged from bringing cash to camp for camp store purchases.

LLYC is situated along the banks of the Frio River on the 1,900-acre H. E. Butt Foundation property deep in the Texas Hill Country, 13 miles north of Leakey on U.S. Highway 83. The camp is approximately 120 miles northwest of San Antonio and 60 miles west of Kerrville. Click here for driving directions!

Label, label, label everything with your camper’s first and last name! LLYC is not responsible for missing items. However, at the close of each camp session, any found items that seem to be of value will be brought to the Kerrville office to return if identifiable. All returns will be made as soon as possible and mailed to the home address via U.S. First-Class Mail. All postage will be prepaid, but we ask that the postage be reimbursed for return of lost and found items. Lost and found items will only be held for two weeks, so check your camper’s bag before leaving camp. All unclaimed items will be donated to a local charity.

At this time, we do not offer a multiple-sibling discount. If you are concerned about the cost, click here to learn how to apply for a scholarship.

Family and friends can send Bunk Notes through our Bunk1 system accessed through My Account.

Please be aware that we print and hand deliver all Bunk Notes to campers. During this process, we screen all messages and images that are sent. If messages are deemed inappropriate for any reason by our camp directors, we reserve the right not to deliver those messages.

Please help us keep LLYC a safe and positive environment for campers!

Campers are assigned to cabins by grade. A roommate request for another registered camper may be made through your account, but it will need to be accepted by the camper being requested. We cannot guarantee all requests, but we will do our best to honor them. Only one request per camper, please.

We take great pride and care in the selection of each member of our staff. We work hard to hire folks with the highest integrity, personal and spiritual maturity, and an enthusiasm for life and working with young people. Each staff member is personally interviewed, reference-checked, and background-checked before they step foot on our property. Once here, they receive 40-80 hours of intensive job-specific training. Please visit our Health and Safety page for more information about our summer staff hiring and training practices.

We take the waterfront and all water activities very seriously. We have a required swim test on opening day of every session that every camper must participate in. If they don’t like to swim, or don’t want to swim at all during their time at camp, we will make an exception and not make them take the swim test. The test consists of a short-distance swim and then treading water for 30 seconds. This just gives us an idea of their swimming ability and lets us see their confidence in the water. If they do not pass their test, we will ask them to swim only in the shallow water and/or wear a life jacket when they plan to swim in deep water. We also have gobs of really good-looking, Red Cross certified lifeguards on the waterfront any time there is an opportunity to play, swim, kayak, or canoe in the Frio River. We keep the lifeguard-to-camper ratio at 1-10.

Homesickness is fairly common among our elementary-age campers; however, it can happen with middle school and high school campers as well. Most homesickness occurs with campers who are away from home for the very first time. This is completely normal. Our whole focus for the first few days of camp is to integrate the camper into our community. We help facilitate friendship within their cabin with both peers and counselors. We know when the lonely times are (at rest time and bed time), and we work hard to console and comfort them as well as redirect them. Generally, homesickness will fade away as the campers settle into the agenda of camp, and usually, that occurs within the first 24-48 hours. We caution parents not to panic if halfway through the session they get a letter stained with tears asking them to come rescue their camper! Call the directors first, and they will give you an updated report on your camper. It wouldn’t be the first time that quickly after a letter like that was written, the camper adjusted well and started loving their experience.

View our camp policies here.

You bet! Just print out our LLYC Health Form (located in your account dashboard or here: Health Form), fill out the top portion, and attach the camper’s athletic/school physical to the LLYC form.

Our emergency action plan accounts for a wide variety of situations, and we most often trigger this plan because of inclement weather. We monitor weather conditions at all times. On-call staff monitor flood risk 24/7 onsite, and our system has built-in redundancies:

• Sonar measurement of the river level
• Local rain gauge readers
• Responding to official flood warnings or flood watches
• In-person river checks

Each cabin is equipped with a flipchart that provides clear guidance for how to respond to any emergency, including how and where to seek higher ground. Campers are oriented to this flip chart upon arrival.

In the event of a flood, our operations staff communicates directly with LLYC staff via 2-way radio. They provide precise instructions to each campsite as needed.

Cabin location relative to the river varies in each campsite. Our cabins have never flooded from rising water, and higher ground is nearby each of our campsites.

Registration for any given summer is done prior to that year. A camper may be put on a wait list for that summer only. If a camper does not clear the wait list, they will be eligible for early registration the following summer.

Our camp is a Christian interdenominational camp. We are not affiliated with a specific denomination.

Please see our health and safety FAQ for more information.

Yes! Camp is happening! We can’t wait to see you.

The state is still processing many licenses for many camps. Our application is in good standing, and we expect to receive final approval very soon.

We are confident that the DSHS will grant LLYC a license to operate summer camp for 2026. We expect to receive our license in early May.

Starting in 2026, new Texas state regulations require all licensed youth camps to notify parents in writing if any portion of their property lies within a 100-year floodplain, and to obtain a signed acknowledgment before camp begins. This is a new disclosure requirement. Because our camps sit in the Frio River Canyon, portions of Echo Valley and Singing Hills have always been near the river, and we have always managed weather and water-safety risks as part of how we operate camp. The new regulation now formally requires us to document and communicate what we know and how we plan for emergencies.

Not necessarily. A ‘100-year floodplain’ means an area has roughly a 1% chance of flooding in any given year. It does not mean floods occur on a schedule.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) maintains official Flood Insurance Rate Maps (FIRM) that designate floodplain boundaries across the country and are referenced by the new state regulations. The existing FEMA maps for our area were last updated in 1985 and do not identify structures within our campsites. In 2025, we hired Wellborne Engineering and Waterway Engineering to follow the FEMA established process for updating the 1985 maps. Their work gives us a more detailed and more accurate picture of which structures and areas of our campsites are within the 100-year floodplain. Waterway Engineering has submitted this updated mapping to FEMA for formal adoption, a review process that typically takes 12 to 18 months.

FEMA’s map revision process involves public comment periods, agency review, and intergovernmental coordination, which takes considerable time even when the underlying engineering work is solid. We revised our Emergency Action Plan based on the updated maps from Wellborne and Waterway Engineering. The 12–18-month FEMA timeline affects the official government record, not our on-the-ground safety operations or our compliance with Texas state licensing requirements.

According to our records, no camp has ever flooded from river rise in recorded history. According to our latest maps of Singing Hills, no buildings or cabins are located in the 100-year floodplain. According to our latest maps of Echo Valley, no cabins are located in the 100-year floodplain. At Echo Valley, the Roundup Pavilion and the Ranch House are located in the 100-year floodplain.

Based on our updated engineering assessment, the Roundup Pavilion and the Ranch House at Echo Valley are located within the 100-year floodplain. Neither of these is an overnight lodging facility. No cabins at Echo Valley or Singing Hills are located within the mapped 100-year floodplain.

At Echo Valley, the Roundup Pavilion and Ranch House are program and dining spaces. Campers never sleep in these buildings under any circumstances. Our Emergency Action Plan restricts the use of these buildings during elevated flood risk conditions. When flood warnings for Real County are issued, activities in or near these structures are suspended immediately and campers move to safer areas.

We know flash flooding is a recurring hazard in Real County, and our protocols are designed for that reality. According to NOAA, floods have occurred on 80 days in the last thirty years in Real County. Not all of these floods have impacted the H. E. Butt Foundation Camp property, but warnings were issued for the entire county. None of the floods resulted in any deaths or injuries on our property.

Both camps use the same Emergency Action Plan, monitoring system, and evacuation protocols. Each camp has its own site-specific evacuation routes and muster zones. The primary difference is in the floodplain footprint. According to our latest maps of Singing Hills, no buildings or cabins are located in the 100-year floodplain. According to our latest maps of Echo Valley, no cabins are located in the 100-year floodplain. At Echo Valley, the Roundup Pavilion and the Ranch House are located in the 100-year floodplain.

In order to be able to reach all campers and camp occupants in the event of an emergency, we equip each camper cabin with a two-way radio capable of receiving whole camp public addresses and alerts.  The radio repeater tower does not require internet and has a generator backup in case of power outage.  Our on-call team monitors our flood early warning system, National Weather Service alerts, and in-person river status checks continuously while camp is in session. 

Our system is designed around early detection. Our flood monitoring protocol begins at a Flood Watch or rainfall forecast of 2 or more inches in 24 hours—well before any water is rising. At that point, staff are already increasing monitoring. Campers begin moving away from river corridors before any formal warning is issued. A full evacuation to high ground muster zones can be triggered by a Flash Flood Warning, rapidly rising water observed on site, or the judgment of the staff—even without a formal alert. Canyon staff have explicit authority to order evacuation immediately based on real-world conditions, regardless of whether a warning has been issued.

Yes. Our alerting systems operate without grid power or internet connectivity. Redundant backup systems ensure that the outdoor sirens, PA, and staff notification tools remain functional during outages.

Evacuation to high ground muster zones is triggered by any of the following:

• rapidly rising water that threatens cabins, program areas, or evacuation routes;
• a directive from local Emergency Management or first responders;
• flood risk alerts from our early warning system;
• or any situation where a staff member’s direct observation indicates imminent life-safety risk, regardless of official alert status.

Canyon staff can also order an immediate evacuation based on field conditions alone, even without a formal warning.

Our Operations teams actively monitors storms throughout the night using an on-call schedule. They can use our outdoor sirens, PA announcements, and staff radios at any time to communicate throughout the Canyon. Counselors stay in cabins with campers overnight (one counselor for every four campers), and they are trained in evacuation procedures. Before heading to the muster zone, counselors grab their evacuation map, emergency action flip chart, and cabin roster. Evacuation routes are well-lit.

Campers and counselors can shelter in place on high ground until Canyon staff confirm it is safe to return to camp. Because we are close to the headwaters of the Frio, River Road is usually drivable six hours after rain has stopped. Our off-site evacuation plan includes two separate route options—north toward Mountain Home (approximately 20 miles) and south toward Leakey (approximately 12 miles)—to provide flexibility if one road is blocked.

Our evacuation plan accounts for campers with mobility limitations, injuries, or disabilities. We have evaluated the incline and surface conditions of our evacuation routes, and staff will be assigned to assist campers in any emergency procedure. Both camp sites have a nurse, and there is always one provider in the Canyon. Both camps have adequate food and water in case we need to close River Road.

In the event of an evacuation, LLYC will contact parents as quickly as possible according to our communications protocol. Our notification system sends automated texts, emails, and phone calls. We will follow up as soon as possible with more details via text, email, and regular updates to our website.

Click here to file a complaint with DSHS.