Camp Trefoil

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          Camp Trefoil was located in the Los Padres National Forest approximately 12 miles west of Frazier Park, CA and 85 miles north-northwest of Santa Monica. The Camp was situated adjacent to a headwaters tributary of San Emigdio Creek at an altitude of about 5,700 feet and was originally operated by the Bakersfield Boy Scout Council in the 1920’s.
F.R. “Uncle Bob” Hill was Scout Executive of Bakersfield Council in the early 1920’s and continued to use the camp when he became the Scout Executive of Crescent Bay Scouts in 1925. It is unclear if Crescent Bay Council ever held a lease or permit for the camp from the U.S. Forest Service and the actual arrangement for its use is unknown.
The Council used Trefoil as a snow camp with winter sports, but aside from that, very little documentation exists today. The Camp is not known to have had  any developments such as buildings, piped water or latrine facilities. One of the very few accounts comes from Alden Barber, past Chief Scout Executive of the Boy Scouts of America and early professional in Crescent Bay Council, recounting a trip to Camp Trefoil around 1940:

“In those days one of the responsibilities of a field scout executive was to accompany selected troops
on weekend campouts. I was the truck driver, chauffeur and chaperone. One of my first exposures was to
accompany [sixteen year old Scoutmaster Dick Rice’s] Troop 36 to Camp Trefoil in the Tehachapis north of
Los Angeles. There was snow on the ground and it was cold. after supper, such as it was I discovered that
Dick and one scout were missing.
Without letting me know, Dick guessed the scout was hitchhiking home. I managed to get the truck, with
no chains, up the hill to the main road. Two hours later I caught up with Dick and the scout. To say I was glad
when the weekend was over would be a gross understatement.”
– Recollections and Reflections: 50 Years in the Boy Scouts of America, Alden G. Barber, p10

Trefoil operated concurrently with Camp Emerald Bay from the late 1920’s through the 1930’s and Camp Josepho during World War II.  Council documentation from January 1946 lists Camp Trefoil as one of the Council Camps.

1946 Summer Campers Notice
Venice District 1946 Scout-O-Rama Program p.2

NOTE: Notice indicates there will be four, perhaps five, camps that will be maintained with staff supervision.
Camp Trefoil is believed to be the fifth camp.

          By the early 1950’s, the site was shown as a Y.M.C.A. camp on Forest Service maps. Westwood District held some of its camporees during the 1950’s and 1960’s in the general area but it is not verified if any of those  events were actually at the former Camp Trefoil site. San Emigdio Girl Scout Camp, which still exists today, is in close proximity to the former Camp Trefoil, a mile or so to the south.

 

Layout of Camp Trefoil
Crescent Bay Council 1939 Camp-O-Ree Log Book p.6 & 16

Camp Trefoil campsite, believed to be drawn by
Star Scout,  Jim Wyatt, Patrol Leader of the Owl Patrol, Troop 4, Santa Monica.
This 1939 drawing is the only known layout of Camp Trefoil.

Prior to the building and completion of Interstate freeways 405 and 5, the route north from Santa Monica towards Bakersfield crossed the San Fernando Valley on Sepulveda Blvd. and onto the old Ridge Route (U.S. 99).
Gorman, CA, population of about 30, was the first California town away from a railroad track to have a gas station in 1923.

Late 1940’s Camp Trefoil Topography Map

1951 Park Service Map
YMCA Camp at Former Camp Trefoil
(copy)

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