Glacier View Ranch Will Undergo Renovations as It Turns 75

The Seventh-day Adventist Church’s Rocky Mountain Conference (RMC) acquired Glacier View Ranch in Ward, Colorado, United States, in 1950. The year 2025 will mark 75 years of ownership of this facility that has historical significance for the church in the area and beyond.

The camp has had 75 years of impactful ministry through church retreats, ministry training events, summer camp programs, Pathfinder camporees, and a host of other ministry moments, regional church leaders said. Scores of people, both young and old, have been baptized in the lake and the pool.

Glacier View Ranch was also the venue for “a historic and controversial theological consultation” in August 1980, for a meeting of the Sanctuary Review Committee, which involved approximately 115 international Bible scholars and church administrators, according to Adventist historian Gilbert Valentine. The unprecedented gathering was tasked with evaluating non-traditional interpretations of the church’s sanctuary doctrine, which had caused widespread ferment when publicly expressed nine months earlier by Australian theologian Desmond Ford, Valentine wrote in the Encyclopedia of Seventh-day Adventists.

Through the years, the camp has witnessed faithful stewards come and go; lake levels rise and fall; trees spring forth and trees die away; and wildlife populations ebb and flow. And, through it all, the structures at GVR have endured seasonal changes and extreme weather conditions. The task of maintaining these structures is always formidable, regional church leaders said.

“While it is good for us to remember with fondness the efforts of good people and the way the Spirit has led in the past, on the eve of GVR’s seventy-fifth year, we are choosing to look forward,” RMC youth director Brandon Westgate said. “Looking forward not only to how the Lord will bless GVR with grace and peace, but also looking forward to making some much-needed improvements on some structures that have needed some help for quite a while.”

Darin Gottfried, RMC vice president of finance, said, “I am very excited about improving everyone’s experience at Glacier View Ranch and am very thankful to those who are investing their time to make that happen.”

Westgate explained the region’s plans to fund part of the project. “We will calculate the total cost for rehabbing a lodge room and a cabin, and we will make an appeal to our churches to sponsor a room or two, or perhaps a cabin or two,” Westgate said. “We know that we can accomplish great things when we partner together. That has been true at GVR since its inception, and we trust that it will continue to be true as we approach this exciting seventy-fifth year of operations!”

Glacier View Ranch director of camp ministries Jonathan Carlson shared, “Remodeling the cabins and the lodge rooms help us do ministry better. It demonstrates that God wants us to strive for bigger and unimaginable things. Projects like this help bring us together and make us realize that anything is possible with faith in God’s purpose for our camp.”

“To continue to operate GVR in this challenging time in earth’s history, we will need your support through offerings of prayer, time, effort, and yes, finances,” Westgate added. “I know that the Lord is able to do more than we can even hope to imagine, so it is with great confidence that we begin this project, leaning on the everlasting arms of a truly loving Lord and relying on the faithfulness of His people.”

The original version of this story was posted on the Rocky Mountain Conference news site.