West Piney Girl's Camp

Initiation

A long silver slide runs from the front door of the large log house down the hill of West Piney Girl's Camp.

Close to 100 hundred steps had to be ascended in order to sit on a square piece of carpet and whisk down at a reckless speed.

Each summer we would attend girls camp at the end of August and take day hikes to locations such as Table Rock, The Monument, and others.

My fourth year of camp we decided to ‘initiate’ each new yearling. One part of it was feeding them bad tasting baby food and smearing their faces with the left over orange pumpkin and squash.

One afternoon etc., put bugs in their shoes outside their tents, and polished up on Grizzly Bear stories. We chuckled at this little initiation process.

On the last night we sat around the camp fire; faces glowing an orange hue against a black backdrop, telling ghost stories. We told the newest members that we were going to take them on a hike up a trail on the opposite side of the camp. It was a fairly good incline up the mountain.

Reaching the trail required walking down the sloped hill that held our tents in places and crossing wood bridge painted brown. A small stream gurgled with the help of several large rocks underneath.

Flashlights dancing up the hill like fireflies I suddenly turned to my friend Rebecca with a great idea I had concocted: “Becca,” I Grinch-ishly said, “we should hide underneath the bridge and then knock on it when the girls come back down the trail. Wouldn’t that be hilarious?” We chuckled as we held back slowly from the rest of the group.

(The story of the fable ‘the billy goat’s gruff’ coming to mind?)

We turned off our flashlights as we fell back behind the group and groped our way in the dark; sliding underneath on our backs, balancing on the rocks precariously strewn above the water. Trying to muffle our laughs, we listened to the sound of the water rushing below and shivered in the night. Between the water and being anxious to scare the girls I held onto a full bladder. The distant sound of the girls meandering up the trail wafted through the dark air.

It was at this time that I began to think about the possibility of what lived under the thick over hanging,like a bat. I stated this thought out loud to my partner in crime and simultaneously turned on my flashlight.

On cue several bats or some other unknown black winged animal flew into our faces! In a huge disarray; we scurried and scraped our backs against the rocks, trying to shimmy out from underneath the bridge. Screams alerted the campers on the trail and they came running.
Once to the top of the bridge; having danced in a few circles; we fell in a clump of fearful laughter out of breath. Once the yearlings reached us, we had been fully initiated.