60,000 Scouts went to this camp near McCall. An Albertson family development firm just bought it
At the closing campfire on summer Friday nights, Richard Sotto would stop the Scouts as they were going back to their campsites. He would ask them if, during their week at Camp Morrison, they did anything they had never experienced before. Every kid, he says, said yes.
The Scouting America Mountain West Council sold Camp Morrison in McCall on June 28 with the unanimous approval of the Council Executive Board, according to a news release.
The wooded camp near scenic Payette Lake was the “favorite place” of many generations of Boy Scouts, said Sotto, a former Camp Morrison director.
It hosted its first Boy Scouts in 1967 and welcomed its first girls’ troops in 2019, after the Boy Scouts of America began admitting girls and dropped the “Boy” before “Scout” as a title for members (but kept it in the organization’s name).
More than 60,000 Scouts have attended Camp Morrison since 1967, Sotto said. They have come from all over the nation, though mostly from Southwest Idaho and Eastern Oregon, he said.
The buyer: Albertson heirs’ real estate business
The camp was sold to Alscott Real Estate LLC, a Boise-based development business owned by the heirs of Joe and Kathryn Albertson, who founded the Albertsons supermarket chain. The family already owns lakefront property adjoining the Scouts’ property.
Brian Scott, vice president of real estate at Alscott and a former NASCAR racer, told the Statesman that he could not disclose terms of the purchase or say what the company will do with it.
Homes dot the woods across from the camp’s main entrance at 2306 Eastside Drive and to the west along Payette Lake, where the Valley County assessor valued the 148-acre camp property at $2.36 million as of Jan. 1. The Boy Scouts also sold an adjoining, 18-acre parcel that stretches from the camp to the lake and includes about 80 feet of beach. That parcel’s assessed value is $5.47 million, bringing the combined value to $7.83 million.
The two properties along the lake just south of the second parcel are owned by the Joseph B. Scott Revocable Trust, which was set up by J.B. “Joe”/ Scott, Brian’s father and grandson of Joe and Kathryn Albertson.
The northernmost one has an assessed value of $13.5 million. The southernmost one, owned by the same trust, was valued even higher because of the additional lakefront land and presence of a 9,000-square-foot mansion and other buildings. The combined assessed value of land and buildings is $20.3 million.
“The Scott family has had a presence in the McCall community for nearly 100 years with a long history of respecting and preserving Idaho’s beauty and natural landscape,” Scott said. “Scouting America will continue to use Camp Morrison for up to two more years, and there are no plans at this time for any future developments. We care about preserving the land and community in McCall.”
The family’s other holdings include the Shore Lodge and Whitetail Club in McCall.
Zoning allows houses on both Scouts parcels
Brian Parker, McCall’s city planner, told the Idaho Statesman that residential land uses are allowed on the 148-acre camp parcel with a maximum of one unit per 10 acres. The 18-acre parcel also allows residential land use up to four units per acre, Parker said by phone.
One of the biggest concerns that led to the sale of the camp was the presence of neighbors in houses across the street, said Lynn Gunter, scout executive and CEO of the Mountain West Council of the Boy Scouts.
“They have been so patient and kind to us,” Gunter said by email. “However, early morning flag ceremonies, active range and target sports, parking, and large gatherings have had an impact.”
The sale, first reported by BoiseDev, had been in discussion for the last 20 years because of the continued development and encroachment around Camp Morrison.
Sale proceeds to benefit 2 other Scouts sites in Idaho
Proceeds of the sale will go to further development and historic preservation of the Bradley Scout Reservation near Stanley and to improvements to the Salmon River High Adventure Base outside of Riggins, Gunter said. These two combined cover over 200 acres, he said.
Both Camp Morrison and the Bradley Scout Reservation will operate as scheduled in 2024, the Mountain West Council said in a frequently-asked-questions document the council shared with the Statesman.
Camp Morrison will still run all programs, including camping and training, in 2025, while the Bradley Scout Reservation will be temporarily closed for construction. In 2026, the newly renovated Bradley Scout Reservation will host a full program year, and Camp Morrison will be permanently closed.
“We will continue to be respectful to our neighbors while we transition over the next couple of summers,” Gunter said.
The nearest neighbor at Bradley Scout Reservation is “not within sight and probably miles away,” Sotto said. This allows Scouts to not worry about staying up late or being noisy, Sotto said.
The Bradley Scout Reservation, about 18 miles north of Stanley, was a mining station in the late 1800s. The Scouts have owned it since 1956. Gunter said it has four natural hot springs that feed into a swimming-pool-shaped venue known as a plunge. “It cycles natural hot spring water year-round,” he said.
Gunter said the facilities will be refurbished, and new venues will include a climbing facility and other programs such as floating on the river and paddle boarding on high mountain lakes throughout the region, including Stanley Lake.
Camp named for Morrison-Knudsen cofounder, a donor
Camp Morrison was created in 1966, after the Ore-Ida Council, today’s Mountain West Council, bought 150 acres adjacent to Camp Tapawingo, where Scouts had been camping since 1934. The first recorded Scout Camp on Payette Lake took place in 1916.
Camp Morrison was named after its largest donor, Harry Morrison, who donated $8,000 of the $13,000 for the purchase of the property. Morrison cofounded the former Morrison Knudsen Co. of Boise, a major 20th century builder of dams, bridges, tunnels, railroads, highways, pipelines, airports, military bases and space centers.
The rest was paid by then president of the Idaho First National Bank, John Schoonover, who contributed $2,500; and the Boise Cascade Corp., which contributed $5,000 respectively, according to the council.
The climbing program is one of the highlights of Camp Morrison, said Sotto, who was camp director between 2006 and 2019 and is now the business programs chair at the College of Western Idaho in Nampa.
A lifeguard and climbing instructor certification was added in 2008, and the climbing program was introduced in 2017.
The climbing program goes from after lunch until dinner every day. Scouts climb on natural rock sites. Those old enough can get certified to become assistants in the climbing program.
“That was fairly unique to Camp Morrison — most camps didn’t have that,” Sotto said.
Sotto said the most rewarding aspects of his role as camp director were seeing children grow and gain confidence.
“There are people who are really upset that such a wonderful place that gave them such life-changing experiences would close,” Sotto said. But he said he sees a greater opportunity at the Bradley Scout Reservation, which “will be a program second to none.”
Camp Morrison provides an opportunity for children to spend a night outside in a shelter that they build. About 80 kids out of a couple hundred in total decide to do that every week, according to Sotto.
“It doesn’t matter where you hold Scout camp — it matters what the staff is like,” Sotto said.