I hear that girls don't want to be Girl Scouts anymore, and if they do they're more interested in computer camp than camp-camp. That's a shame, because there aren't better memories for me than my earliest outdoor experiences. Saturday, our women's hiking group explored Fern Canyon at the Mitre Peak Girl Scout Camp outside Fort Davis, a far more spectacular setting than Camp Kitanawa near Battle Creek or the camp at Lake Bloomington. These Texas girls were lucky, what a special place to test yourself and learn you were strong. And on Saturday, we weren't women in our 40s and 50s and 60s anymore, we were intrepid girls forcing our bodies through crevices and scampering over the rocks.
Mary brought her camp photos from her 1959 Brownie camera--tiny black and white images of girls from flat, desolate Midland sitting around campfires, swimming between boulders, mugging for the camera. We retraced young Mary's steps through Fern Canyon, where some ferns were green and others dormant, just waiting for water. We scared off javelina, who headed up the mountains as we tromped through. Then to the first pool, where the frogs chirped and leapt into the water when we arrived. And then to the second pool surrounded by red boulders, the bathing site of the earliest campers. This is where we stopped for lunch, watching the fish in the water below, sharing Kate's magnificent chocolate oat bars and contemplating our younger selves. Mary pointed out Frankenstein, a monster from their ghost stories, really just a knobby rock formation overlooking the camp. She noted time has given him whiskers, since trees appear to be growing under his nose and chin.
Mary was there in the early days of the camp, when the older campers really built the place, cutting trails, digging trenches, hard sweaty character-building work. She told us stories of plucky girls, torrential rains and flooded tents, javelina and snakes. More about snakes next.....
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