Crooked Creek Ranch

CROOKED CREEK RANCH — 1994

“Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance” (James 1:2-3).

In 1994, Young Life purchased approximately 1,000 acres of the Murphy Cattle Ranch, located in the heart of the Colorado Rocky Mountains. Frontier Ranch, the only Young Life camp nearby, was reaching capacity. As a result, there was a desperate need for more space. The opportunity to acquire a large parcel of land in Fraser, Colorado, outside of Winter Park came to fruition. Young Life decided to build a camp from the ground up. This brought with it many exciting opportunities and many challenges, so much so that it felt at times like everything was against the project. The initial cost of building the camp was nearly doubled due to so many changes and additions. The U.S., namely Fraser, Colorado, was also going through a major building boom, which made it difficult to get skilled labor. And, being one of the highest elevation mountain towns in the U.S. brought many challenges as well. On top of all of this, Fraser, also known as “the ice box,” is the coldest town in Colorado. This made the window to build very limited. Much of the construction had to happen simultaneously and, due to the small community, there was much pushback from neighbors and locals in the area disliking the major construction nearby. After all the pushback, Young Life said they would never build a property from the ground up again. However, that promise was quickly broken due to the need for more camps, God’s generous portions of land, and Young Life’s persistence in kids meeting Jesus! Crooked Creek opened for its first summer camping season in 1999. Since then the camp has welcomed thousands of kids, leaders, volunteers and guests onto the property to hear the gospel.

Fraser, Colorado

While building Crooked Creek, an overwhelming number of factors challenged this camp in becoming a reality. In your life, have you ever felt like things were against you? How did you respond to the situation? How did God show up?