Boy Scouts will soon have another place to camp at Camp Michaels.

The Dan Beard Council is buying 61 acres next to the 630-acre camp off Hathaway Road. The new area, off Dale Williamson Road, will have a hiking trail, one or two cabins, platforms for tents, a gravel parking area, a pavilion and plenty of open land.

"We're going to keep it essentially like it looks," said Tracy Techau, CEO of the council, which serves Boone, Campbell, Kenton, Gallatin, Grant, Owen and Pendleton counties in Kentucky and Butler, Clermont, Hamilton, Warren and Brown counties in Ohio.

Camp Michaels is one of four camps run by the council. The Boone County Board of Adjustments recently approved a conditional use permit to allow the camp on the condition that only a few buses a weekend travel to the site.

In addition to giving the Scouts a new area for camping, the purchase will help buffer Camp Michaels, Techau said, "The very principal reason why we are purchasing the property is to kind of protect the integrity of the camp we currently enjoy," he said. "We all know that Boone County is a very popular destination for people to grow their families, build homes and put up private estates."

Steve McDaniel, whose family has owned the property since the 1950s, said his mother, who died two years ago, wanted to sell it to the Boy Scouts. Though developers had offered to buy the land from him, McDaniel turned them down. "I carried out her wishes and contacted the Boy Scouts," McDaniel said.

The land is the first the Scouts have purchased since the 1940s, Techau said. The land has a steep hill that falls about 300 feet to a branch of Gunpowder Creek and an open flat area.
Most of Camp Michaels is wooded, so camping on the new site will be a different experience.
"It's a very pretty area, it's very private back there," Techau said. "It's just neat, it gives boys a chance to hike, camp, in an area where they will feel like they are the first Boy Scouts to ever camp in that area."

By next summer, Boy Scouts should be regularly using the land, though Techau said some are likely to use it sooner.