VTL Goes to Girl's Camp

The hills are alive with the sounds of music...and laughter...and bacon...and bears. 


I have returned from the mountain with tales of nature in all her rugged beauty!   Yes,  I've been away camping, and sadly, not in The Boss Lady.  This time in a Tent...with 4 other wonderful ladies...and 25 young vibrant girls.  It was a grand adventure, to say the least.


On Tuesday morning, we loaded a trailer to the brim with tents, suitcases, pillows, sleeping bags, coolers, dutch ovens and several hundred pounds of food.  Four brave leaders (in custom made aprons)taking 25 girls between the ages of 12 and 18 on a four day campout in the Wasatch Mountains above Heber, Utah. 

(R-L) Tara Call, Amy Allen, Emily Freeman and me. You Go Girls!! 

Dont worry - we had lots of help. We were also accompanied by four Young Women's Leaders and two wonderful Priesthood Elders who would prove to be such a blessing for our camping adventure.  Who knew Dave North was Grizzly Adams? 


Our goal?  Lots of fun at the lake, making crafts, learning how to make fire and use a compass, eating great food and feeling the power and peace of God's magnificent creations. What did we get?  Lots of rain, some scary lightning, and one unexpected breakfast guest. 

Our Breakfast Guest

Meet the Utah Brown Bear.  This one is just a yearling - small enough to look cute - scary enough that you really don't want him to come to breakfast, or any other meal for that matter.  But he smelled the yummy bacon and came a runnin right into our camp. For a brief moment, there was absolute silence as we were stunned to see this magnificent creature in the wild.  Then reality kicked in and our camp host who had appeared as if out of nowhere, quietly said "make some noise girls." And noise we made - a choir of shouts and shrieks and cheers and whistles along with a fierce Brother North and his broom. Not exactly the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.  The bear glanced longingly at the eggs and bacon on the grill, but opted not to dine with the shrieking females.  As quickly as he came, he was gone. 


So with sadness in our hearts, we took down our little camp and headed for the safety of the cabin for the rest of our camp.  We setup all the tents on the lawn facing a beautiful mountain stream and went on with all the fun activities we had planned.  We even ventured back to camp for swimming in the lake, canoeing and jumping off the zip line. The rain came every afternoon, but our bear friend did not and that was OK. 


In these four glorious days, I learned so much! I learned how to cook real live camping food and that sleeping in a tent is OK when you have four friends to share it with and that growing girls are always hungry - maybe more so than growing bears.  And most importantly, that God did a beautiful job- he made lovely girls, beautiful mountains and wild brown bears - all a testimony that He is truly great.  


I came home exhausted and slept for 15 hours. Now that the mess is cleaned up, we've all showered and are no longer tired, we all agreed that we got so much more than just rain, lightning and bears. We had a ton of fun and we are better for the experience- after all, even the boy scouts haven't had a bear in camp - we are awesome!!!