I have wanted to take a tour of the many camps in Southern Idaho since I first moved to the Treasure Valley in the fall of 2010 and the interest grew in 2011 when I started serving on the board for Luther Heights Bible Camp between Ketchum and Stanley. I talked about this with other board members but we never made it happen. In 2023, around the time I was elected bishop, Pastor Andy Hamblen, former board chair and pastor of Our Savior Lutheran in Twin Falls, began convening camp directors and board members of the five mainline camps. I joined the Zoom calls when I could. The camp people slowly got to know one another and learn more about the sites, but nothing can replace visiting a site. Last spring we put dates on the calendar and on Tuesday, Sept. 1 we began our two-day tour. I wish we could have included the 4-H, Baptist, Seventh-Day Adventist, Quaker, Girl Scout, Nazarene and other camps. We’ll just have to organize another trip.

What no photos of beautiful UMC Sawtooth Camp capture if the 20 mile dirt road up out of Fairfield before you arrive at the site, donated to the UMC Annual Conference by a rancher in the 1940s. The road was good in places but also a bit bumpy. I can’t believe I’m complaining about the road because I worked at Camp Christikon in southern Montana for three summers. That road on beside the Bolder River-IYKYK. The Hargraves, from my own adopted city of Nampa, ran this camp for decades and their legacy is everywhere. Most of the cabins were quite simple but well kept. The welcome center and dining hall, including the outdoor patio and open kitchen, were gorgeous. The open spaces were lovely–great places for free play but way up high in the mountains.

We drove back down the road and picked up the highway to Ketchum and just a little beyond to PCUSA Camp Sawtooth, which leases land from the Forest Service. This camp started unofficially in 1927 but its real start date (along with the UCC) was 1932. They have 8 camper cabins plus a two-story lodging for adults + kids. The plan is to have a 5 RV Sites.

Our final stop Tuesday was Luther Heights, so up over Galena Summit we drove. It’s hard to see the camp I’m most familiar with through other people’s eyes and the camp property has changed a great deal since I first visited in 2011. That was one of the first summers of the new cabins with bathrooms. A few years later, bathrooms were added to four older cabins. Then came the new dining hall–Sawtooth Lodge. I like the outdoor chapel and I love the chapel in the meadow, see below.

We spent the night at Luther Heights. I planned and presided at a simply Holy Communion Service. Along with Pastor Andy and I, our travel group included the Episcopal camp director (finishing up in October) their the cook, assistant director and an advisory team member, and the board chair of the UCC camp. Luther Heights direct Maddie hosted us and joined as at Paradise Point the next day (she’d already visited the PCUSA and UCC camps). After the worship service we sat around the fireplace in the dinging hall and sang camp songs–classic.

The next day, during a thunderstorm, we drove down to the Alturas Lake docks (where Luther Heights campers go canoeing). No, we did not get out of our cars. Then we drove the 3.5 hours over to McCall for lunch. Linnae, the Paradise Point advisory team member who has only lived in Idaho for five years, had never seen the Sawtooths until that morning.

After lunch, we drove out the UCC camp Pilgrim Cove, down the beach from McCall. This camp is 11 acres and was started around 1936. They are slowly remodeling their cabins; we loved the loft area created in the cabin pictured below. The new dining hall with lodging on the lower level was completed quite recently. There is something marvelous about a property directly on a lake.

Our final stop was up around Lake Payette at Episcopal Paradise Point Camp. This camp is 55 acres also on the lake and was started in 1935. They have a dining hall but try to do almost all of their eating outside on the patio. There water system is impressive–filtering water right from the lake for camp use. Cabins are small and rustic but there is other remodeled lodging with attached bathrooms. The large rec building gave me a picture of what Luther Heights old Whitecloud Lodge could look like someday. The newest two buildings are the director’s cabin and maintenance building. At the very end of our tour, we made it out to the actual Paradise Point.