"Girls Camp" Isn't Just for Girls

It's always fun when you discover something you've always known, but now you're actually a part of it. My wife, Lori, has a leadership position working with the older girls in our church (the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints). Anyway, because of that she is involved in all of the girls' activities, and I often get to go along too.

Let me tell you a little about Girls Camp. It's a three to five-day "girls only" campout for those turning 12 years of age during the year to those who just graduated from high school. That's right, only girls and adult female leaders, however they usually ask a couple of men to serve as security and do other things to help out. I was asked to go along in 2021 and after that experience, I said "I'm definitely in for next year too."

The girls, their leaders and a photo bomber (to the left)

We just got home from the 2022 camp up Petty Creek in western Montana. Camp leaders referred to 2022 camp as "Plan B" because rising river levels left the planned campsite under about a foot and a half of water so they made a last-minute decision and we ended up on private property in an absolutely beautiful setting in the mountains surrounded by the Lolo National Forest. Leaders and girls alike rolled with the punches and had a great time. 

We had three great meals a day served under a large tent, slept in small tents and the girls took part in a wide array of activities including orienteering, bear identification and safety (I was asked to lead that one), fire building, first aid, herbs and edibles, devotionals, camp songs, flag ceremonies, polar plunges, rock painting, hair tinsel, personalized lantern bags, volleyball, glow stick night games and other activities. 

Lori and I accompanied two of the four groups up in the mountains to a small spring-fed waterfall that shot out of the rock. It was a short hike - only a little over a mile - but it was a little rugged, which everyone seemed to like. First we walked through a nice grassy meadow and then headed through thick brush, crossed the stream several times, made our way across a rock scramble of loose flagstones of all shapes and sizes, and then had to climb single file to hike across a steep rock face and then drop into where we got a nice view of the waterfall. Even though it was 90 degrees that day, the temperatures were really cool by the spring. And the water was oh so wonderfully cold and delicious!

We started in a meadow...

...ascended to the high country...

...and made it to the waterfall...

...where more photo-bombing took place.

Cornhole showdown

While there were a lot of activities, our job (Adam Smith, Ronan Stake president, and I) was just to wander around in the background. Although when we were publicly challenged three different times to cornhole showdowns in front of the entire camp that cheered against us, we pulled out three hard-fought victories. 

I also brought along my fly rod so when one of the leaders said, "Okay Mark, time to create your own personal lantern bag," I took that as a cue to grab my fishing pole, thrash through the streamside brush and hop in the creek. The water was really cold since it's snowmelt runoff but the fish cooperated. I ended up catching seven of them in an hour or so even though number-eight, the largest of the batch, spit out my fly and got away.

Camp cornhole kings

Right after I got back, one of the camp leaders asked if I'd get some bird's eye view photos of the campsite for the property's owner. "A bird's eye view?" I asked. "From how high up?" "Yeah, climb up the mountain and get some good photos, okay?" Because of the heights of the ponderosa trees in the forest, then meant a bit of a hike to get high enough above them that I could get a view of most of the camp, or at least the portion where we all camped. The rock facing was pretty steep but that made it kind of like climbing a ladder in spots so getting up was much quicker than getting down. But once up there, the view of the entire little valley was pretty spectacular.

A bird's eye view of Girls Camp 2022

Where I took the photo

The best part of everything was getting to know these fun, quality young women. They're all just so wonderful in their own ways. I even met a cousin with the same last name and with a name like Holyoak, that just doesn't happen. Apparently they just moved here a little while back and something like her great, great, great, great grandfather and my great, great, great grandfather were brothers. How about that?!

So my third girls camp experience was such a good time. And of course, it rained the last night there so everything was soaked.

Girls camp experience number-two took place in August 2021 on the banks of the Flathead River near the National Bison Range in Moiese. It was hot, hot, hot and fun, fun, fun. 

This time, Lori and I borrowed our son-in-law's camper that sat in the back of his pickup. And this time, I was the only adult male for most of camp. One night while we were sleeping, we got a knock on the door at about 1 or 2 o'clock in the morning: "Mark, Mark, we need you to come out. We think there's a bear in the camp," they whispered with a sense of urgency. This was a 50-50 proposition. Chances are it was a black bear but we were camping in grizzly bear territory too so I hoped for the former. Out of the tent, I shined my flashlight into the tents and across the river. And then I heard it. It came from across the river and sounded kind of like a mew. I recognized it immediately. It was a cow elk. In fact, from the noise across the river, I could tell it was a herd of elk. "Are you sure that's an elk? How do you know?" I just laughed since I work at the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation and I'd just gotten home a couple of days earlier from the RMEF World Elk Calling Championships, plus I'm a hunter. I told them I had a pretty good idea what an elk sounded like. I walked throughout camp, assured them everything was okay and we all went back to bed.

Like the 2022 version, the 2021 camp was a great time as well. In addition to a bunch of activities, the girls and leaders navigated a mud obstacle course. They were all a grimy, mucky mess. I was stationed toward the end of the course behind one of those large agricultural sprinklers so, of course, I manned it like a water cannon and soaked any and all girls that came within range. From there, the girls loaded onto a flatbed trailer attached to a tractor and I drove them through fields of crops to the edge of the Flathead River so they could jump in, rinse off and swim their way downstream to camp. 

Mud obstacle course = conquered!

Heading upstream on the beautiful Flathead River

One morning, I got up early and paddled my paddleboard upstream about a half mile or so to an island in the river for some early morning fishing. I wasn't there very long but it was so peaceful, fun and yes, successful. On one of my first couple of casts I hooked a smaller fish. As it got closer to me, I could tell it wasn't a trout. In fact, I couldn't tell what it was until I pulled it out of the water. It was a smallmouth bass - the first bass I'd caught since my teenage days back in Kansas. Then on the next cast I pulled in a 20-inch rainbow. Man, it was a nice, big, pretty fish. 

The highlighted activity was a 10-mile raft float on the Flathead. We piled into trucks and cars and headed upriver. Each raft held eight to 10 girls and a couple of leaders. They pumped up their rafts and one by one, launched into the river. I was asked to be the mobile security guy so I floated along on my paddleboard which was perfect since I could float downstream or pivot and paddle upstream if needed for whatever situation. One of the rafts did get stuck on a rock for a few minutes so we had everyone move to a part of the raft not on the rock. Then they all rocked and bounced as I pushed with both feet. Eventually they popped off of it and were on their way. We pulled off about halfway through the float and ate sack lunches. Back on the river, more girls jumped into the water as temperatures heated up. I was getting steamy too but never had to leave my paddleboard. They were all tethered to their rafts so they would float alongside them. I couldn't afford to have my paddleboard float away so instead of jumping in, I made my way alongside several of them, yelled "Attack!" and started splashing them with water by slapping my paddle on the river. All of them were armed with water soaker guns and they just punished me with water. I'd yell, "Ha missed! Missed again! You're all awful shots!" Of course I was doused with water that felt oh so good. And somewhat surprisingly, even though the river was large and deep in places, the water was really, really warm. Anyway, I carried out several attacks along the way and got wonderfully soaked each time.

The 2021 crew. (Yeah, they clean up well.)

My first girls camp experience was 42 years earlier as a 17-year-old just out of high school and, no I was not invited. A group of us teenage guys decided to hit the drive-in theater while the girls, a few of which we were dating, were at girls camp near Augusta, Kansas. My buddy John got the family van and a whole bunch of us piled in for the all-night Pink Panther movie-a-thon at the local drive-in theater. After watching a couple of them and eating a bunch of burgers and junk food, it was around 1 a.m. or so. That’s when we came up with the idea to crash girls camp. The goal was to somehow find the girls we knew, hide in the bushes and jump out and scare the brains out of them. After sneaking around for a while, we still couldn’t find our girls but at one point a group of other girls found us as we hid in high grass. The beams from their flashlights were right on three of us. Then they said, “There’s some men!” and ran off. About an hour later I asked John if he had his keys to the van. He said he left them in the ignition because he thought we would make a quick getaway. As we started back to the van, we saw a car drive close to us so we dove into a ditch. After the driver left, we snuck up to the van but it was locked. We’d been caught so we stood out in the open and the camp leaders came and balled us out. 

The head lady wanted to call the bishop (my dad at the time) at 2:30 a.m. and tell him to come get us. She and her husband treated us like we committed some sort of terrible crime or something. The lady’s husband made us write down our names, ages and other information. They said we needed to apologize to church leaders, write a letter, do all-night labor and other stuff. The only thing that kept us from getting killed was a man from our church unit who had been one my youth leaders when I was younger. He knew we were good kids and calmed down the camp leaders. They determined our punishment was we had to tell the bishop what we’d done. I thought that was really unfair because my dad was our bishop. What about the other guys telling their parents, too? We drove back to Wichita and crashed in John’s living room. Later that day, all the guys came over to my house. Dad talked to us a little and agreed with us that the whole thing got blown out of proportion.

So I guess I'm a bit of a girls camp veteran. Can't wait for 2023!