—By Jeffrey Dahdah

KETCHUM, Idaho (KMVT/KSVT) On a Sunday afternoon, a group of teenagers tentatively got to know each other somewhere in the wilderness north of Ketchum. It could have been the first day of any summer camp, but this one’s a little different. It’s Camp Rainbow Gold, a camp for kids with cancer and their families.

“They arrive at camp a little shy, a little uncertain. Maybe they’ve just finished some chemo and they don’t have their hair or just feeling a little different because their body feels differently and watching them come up here and meet others that they understand without saying anything, and you see them come out of their shells,” said Elizabeth Lizberg, the executive director for the camp.

The camp has been around for 35 years, the last 25 of which have been at Cathedral Pines Campground north of Ketchum.

“It’s beautiful and it has been exciting to be here and provide the services here,” Lizberg said.

But the camp is on a year-to-year lease there. They want a permanent location and they thought they might have one up East Fork Canyon. But this winter the request was denied by the Blaine County Planning and Zoning Commission.

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