Camp Bighorn staff readies for camp season

Now that the sunshine is out and summer is officially here, Camp Bighorn is gearing up and training their staff for this season’s first group campers coming June 30.

Last Friday, the camp was having staff members get a feel for the activities they would be teaching and had them participate in a number of their outdoor events such as high ropes obstacle courses, kayaking, rock climbing and swimming in the Clark Fork River.

Camp Bighorn is a year-round Christian camp that’s owned by the Churches of the Columbia Baptist Conference, but is also open to campers of any denomination. Some of the camps activities include rock climbing, mountain biking, backpacking, rope courses and a variety of river activities.

“I’m very excited about camp, we have a lot of high quality summer staff this year,” said Tory Albertson, Camp Bighorn’s executive director,

Currently the camp has 30 temporary staff that range from teenagers to adults. Later in the summer, Albertson says they’ll see about 50 temporary staff members that will work at the camp. The temporary staff will stay at the camp anywhere from one to eight weeks depending upon their experience levels.

“The huge point about the summer, for me, is what we can do with the summer staff,” Albertson said. The biggest highlight for him is watching his staff members grow as individuals through service. “We’re trying to focus on hearts and minds, we want to look at character development, to build up our staff into men and women of substance,” Albertson said.

To do that Albertson likes using outdoor events to teach life principles. “I like to set them up into situations where questions can be asked so that instead of obstacles they can see opportunities,” Albertson said. One of those obstacles Albertson refers to is a zip line pulley that’s elevated 60 feet off of the ground. It’s the last part of their high ropes course that ranges in different balancing obstacles from rope swings, cable walks and a 20-foot long elevated log crossing.

Temporary staff member Forrest Bauer, 15, from Puyallup, Wash., felt that he could see personal growth already from his experience on the high ropes course last Friday. Bauer said he’s always had a fear of heights, but that going through the camps high ropes course helped him overcome it. “It was scary going through the course the first time through, but after a while I got used to it. It’s just so much fun,” Bauer said.

Bauer hopes that through his time at camp he’ll be able to see more progress. “I signed up to stretch my boundaries and to really challenge myself and learn how to be a leader,” Bauer said.

Sara Fant, 15, from Honolulu, Hawaii said she was signing on for the second time because of a variety of reasons. “I like it because I feel like I’m accomplishing something, I like making a difference in kids lives, I Like learning outdoor activities and feeling competent at them,” Fant said.

Yet, like Bauer, she felt that personal growth was the biggest draw to coming to the camp. “Being here you focus a lot not on yourself and that helps you to accomplish things,” she said.

Albertson said that Camp Bighorn was originally created by the Churches of the Columbia Baptist Conference in 1985 to be a hunting camp. However, when Tom Collins, the former executive director, was appointed to manage the camp in 1986 he felt that the camp could serve a larger purpose if it was open to more people and taught life concepts through outdoor activities.

His ideas will continue to be put into practice by the Bighorn staff who will see anywhere from 500 to 1000 campers visit this summer. Camp Bighorn has three different types of camps to accommodate people’s needs. They have their Christian adventure camps that use outdoor activities to build faith, their specialty camps that focus on a specific skill like kayaking or mountain biking and then they have retreats where organizations can simply use their facilities to host their own programs.

At the end of the year’s summer camps Albertson said that he likes to look back at the progress he’s seen within his staff and the enjoyment that comes from the campers. “The memories I have are when the campers are able to grab something about life and then engage it and when they start to pay attention to things they didn’t even know they needed to pay attention to. It’s sort of light bulb Moment,” Albertson said.