Friday the 13th at Camp Crystal Lake

Updated – 2/5/23

It was early summer in the 1950s, and I was just a teenager who needed a summer ca…. NO!

It was a freezing weekend in February when I visited Camp Crystal Lake, aka Camp Blood (“There’s a death curse!”), which is really just a Boy Scout Camp near the Delaware Water Gap.  This Scout camp is famous because it was where the very first Friday the 13th was filmed.  And the world of movies has never been the same.

Now I need to be clear up front: This camp is NOT open for tours.  They get extremely unhappy if you show up and try to look around (they won’t, under any circumstances, give permission).  They get even more unhappy if you trespass to look around without permission, because then they have to call the cops.  The good news?  They have several tours/fan experiences a year available now on select weekends, including some that include watching the movie at the camp or meeting some of the actors from the film.  If you are interested in one of those tours, go visit this website. 

We stayed here with the Scouts because the Appalachian Trail goes along the edge of camp, and there is a sweet day hike from this camp to an old abandoned Boy Scout camp.  Of course, staying at Camp Blood (and sleeping in a cabin where it was filmed) was a nice little bonus, even if my Scouts had no idea what the heck was going on.

This is the AT above the camp.

Which was a pretty good decision.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaanyway, the first awesome part – we got to stay in one of the cabins that was used for filming.  Hooray!

Totally spooky to get there at night.

Inside the cabin.

Pat brought appropriate reading material.

The morning was great, because this was my view when I woke up.  Took the edge off the temperatures in the teens.

Nice.

This is awesome.

While the Scouts staggered around half asleep, several of us old folks lept up to start exploring Camp Blood.

We didn’t have to look hard to find a great view.

Geeking out at little bit. A lot a bit.

You can see that I’m thrilled.

It’s totally this.

Here is where we are staying.

“There’s a death curse.”

Of course, there are other highlights to see in the camp.

Danger.

Dun dun duuuuun

Of course, at some point it just degenerated into ridiculousness.  I’m okay with this.

Completely ridiculous.

That was before the mask came out.

Pretending to be dead.

Yes, I realize that Jason didn’t wear a mask until the forth movie. And that he was not even a killer in the first movie. I strive for a historically accurate blog.

That concludes our tour of the real camp behind the fictional Camp Crystal Lake.  I hope you enjoyed this, and that you’ll be watching one of the twelve lovely Friday the 13th movies this evening.