The 300 Southeastern California Pathfinders who camped at Idyllwild in 1954 could never have imagined that in October 2004, nearly 2,200 Pathfinders would camp together to celebrate 50 years of camporees.
In fact, that 1954 camporee, the first in the world, was an experiment; no one was sure there would be a second one. But before campers headed down the mountain on Sunday, conference youth leaders Charles Martin and Harry Garlic announced that it had been such a success they would make it an annual event. And it has been — even when there was also a union or division camporee that year.
Some things haven’t changed at camporees. Leaders and counselors at Rancho Jurupa County Park in Riverside conducted morning and evening devotionals; guest speaker, Clifford Lim, told stories and appealed to campers to commit their lives to Christ, just as guest speakers have done for 50 years, and activities on Friday and Sunday still involved skill, balance, and a lot of jumping and running.
But many things have changed. Rudy Carrillo, conference Pathfinder leader, explained that the larger numbers of Pathfinders and the growing concerns about wildfires make it impossible to camp in wilderness locations in the mountains and deserts where camporees were held for many years. Fiftieth anniversary campers might have missed the mystical strangeness of forest and desert, but they also didn’t have to deal with the cold, snow or sandstorms earlier campers sometimes faced.
The brightest things at early campfire programs were the sparks and flames of the open fires, but the 2004 camporee featured a dazzling laser show on Saturday night. Early Pathfinders who suffered with leaky canvas “pup tents” and dirt floors couldn’t even dream of the pop-up dome tents with floors, windows and rain-proof flies that are standard equipment for modern clubs. But then and now, Pathfinders often asked the same old question at the dining tables: “What’s that?”
“I miss the close, personal relationships of the smaller groups,” said Connie Perez, who has attended all 50 camporees. “But the influence of Pathfinders is still the same. We don’t have to preach to the kids. They stay in the church just because we show we care, and because we spend time with them.”
