On Friday night and Saturday, October 21-22, Jeff Z led an Introduction to Leadership Skills for Crews (ILSC) course over at Camp Fife in the Grand Columbia Council, assisted by Jerry J from Crew 898 and Zach F from Crew 570/1042.  John Z helped out in Module I, but then led the adults to another area of the Camp for an introduction to Kodiak Challenge course.  Both groups, youth and adults, rejoined on late Saturday afternoon as Zach and Jeff gave a encore of their Managing A Superactivity presentation from the previous weekend's conference in Seattle.  The new officers and advisors for 10 Crews, none of whom had been through Venturing training, were the student-participants. 

The four hour drive from Poulsbo to Goose Prairie through Chinook Pass was an adventure!  Eastbound on Friday night, the Pass was dark, socked in with rain and fog.  That was actually a blessing, because when the sun was out on the westbound leg Saturday at sunset, we discovered that the highway through the Pass, while breathtakingly beautiful, resembled something like Ice Road Truckers would record...the edges of the narrow twisting Highway 410 had few guardrails and the drop off the ledges along the switchbacks went straight down into a seeming abyss.  The rocky peaks looked like the back side of Mars.

Camp Fife is a delightful facility, located in the heart of the eastern slopes of the Cascades, along the banks of the aptly named Bumping River.  Herds of elk wander through the fields, and the massive dining hall sports a two-story stone fireplace and seating capacity for 450.  Accustomed to bare huts and open-air adirondacks at our local Camps in Puget Sound, we were blessed to stay in one of Fife's little staff houses, complete with a full kitchen, lounge, mattressed beds, and showers...with hot water!  There's no commercial power in Goose Prairie, so the Camp runs on a 100kw generator that shuts down at 11PM and starts up again at 6:30 the next morning.  "Lights Out" at night means exactly that!