Snoqualmie Valley Venturing Crew #115 was established in 1987. It is located in Snoqualmie Valley in East King County. Venturing is a youth development program of the Boy Scouts of America for young men and women who are 14 (and have completed the 8th grade) through 20 years of age. Venturing’s purpose is to provide positive experiences to help young people mature and to prepare them to become responsible and caring adults. Each venturing crew has it’s own program specialty. Our specialty is high adventure or any kind of fun in the outdoors. Our program emphasizes team work; we learn how much we can accomplish by working together.
Our activities are broad and are normally driven by our adult re-sources based on experiences they bring to our group. But we do have some staple activities that we do annually. Our first activity of the year is our snow campout where we ride snowmobiles owned by the crew. We have several pull behind sleds that we load up equipment and then go several miles up into the mountains. The trip is preceded by several weeks of maintenance and repair of our snowmobile fleet. Each member is required to complete a comprehensive safety training program that includes time in the class- room and in the field followed by a safety check off.
In the spring we turn from snowmobiles to sea kayaking. Over several years our crew members have hand built a fleet of awesome sea kayaks. Our kayak fleet can accommodate 12 paddlers. We have 4 double kayaks and 4 single kayaks. Each boat is made of okume plywood, fiberglass and epoxy. Each boat took about 60 hours to build. We give extensive sea kayak training to each member and take overnight tours in water all around the Northwest including the San Juan Islands and the inland waters of Washington.