As a scouter of roughly 8 years (and more in Cub Scouts), I've been to a good assortment of camps. This was my first year as an adult leader, and I can confidently say that many of the aspects of Camp Raven Knob were absolutely abysmal in comparison to other camps.
Initially, I'd rather eat dog food for a week straight than eat what they had to offer. The dining hall food was objectively worse than any other dining hall I've been to (besides maybe Skymont, they were pretty close). The system in which they ran the dining hall was also pretty unoptimal, having us assemble outside for all 3 meals and having everybody eat at the same time led to cramped, limited space for the waiters and others. Also, there is no reason for us to assemble outside before every meal if they're going to do the announcements in the cramped dining hall instead. The trading post was also only really open during the class times, so people with long periods and long walking distances could not go to the trading post until after dinner (which is when they do most open activities such as free swim, so then scouts still can't go).
Additionally, the tents were not designed very well and many of them smelt bad upon arrival or had damages. The commissioners were not very helpful either, providing minimal support for these issues. Some campsites are also really poorly made. Piney Ridge A, for example, is LITERALLY on a road... which is on a steep hill. Tiny pavilion, VERY tiny campfire space, and there are like 3 campsites around it which limits the space to move about.
The bathroom situation is actually the worst one I've seen, there are only like 2 bathrooms at the entire camp that I would allow myself to sit down at. Many of them are porta-potty style toilets in either tiny portables or buildings, causing gut-wrenching stenches and lots of bugs. The shower heads were also really low in both the adult and youth shower areas, which was just obnoxious. Lastly, for the youths, instead of having different shower houses for males and females, the shower area was shared. This caused there to be set times for each gender to shower due to YPT/SYP protocols. This wouldn't be that big of an issue, yet they put the times for the male scouts at times in which they are in class, at meals, or during the twilight activities. After 10:30pm, the showers were free game, so that's when many of my scouts had to shower.
On the positive side, the staff were generally nice and supportive. Aquatics was ran pretty smoothly, the social environment is pretty friendly, and the classes were taught pretty well. Many scouts completed their merit badges, had a good time in the Raven Scouts program, and enjoyed the twilight activities offered. The only issue we had with staff was our Troop Guide, Bella, who didn't give us a tour around the camp and barely saw us all week. We didn't get to do our swim tests before classes began and we didn't understand the dining hall layout until the 2nd day because we were not instructed. This was partly because the medical form process was VERY drawn out, taking roughly 2 hours for us to get our medical forms in and then continue with our tour. That being said, she still made no effort to provide instruction after this incident. She was genuinely all over the place, it was insane. Despite this though, there is a pretty good group of staffers at this camp with the potential to make the camp really great with some alterations.
In all, the camp wasn't all bad, and some of the scouts had a good time interacting with the staff and other campers. I believe that the camp wouldn't be as poorly rated if there were better facilities and organization around meals and assemblies. My troop will not be returning here, but the camp has potential with some renovation and proper planning. Thanks for reading, please take this review into consideration. read more
