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Magical Place

Posted on August 27, 2023

For my Girl Scout friends…

Sound familiar? Yup. Vernon and I went for a drive this afternoon and we ended up close to Onion Gulch.
For those many of you who did NOT work at Girl Scout National Center West, Onion Gulch was one of our camp sites where we took teenage girls on horse pack trips. We’d spend a week riding, packing horses, pitching camp, eating dehydrated food, riding some more…

We’d start camp by evaluating and matching girls with horses and doing short rides, then throw them on horses, teach them to pack a horse, ride out for six days and come back to base camp (aka Saddle Straddle), clean up, do a couple of more short day rides, and send those girls home with two weeks of memories that lasted a lifetime! And it was GRAND fun for us counselors as well.

Poor Vernon had to listen to my stories… we did this and that girl did this and we rode over there and over there…

Up there on the top of the tree covered skyline is the fire lookout above Meadowlark Lake… and we we road WAAAAY over there, and climbed the steep trail and visited the ranger and rode all the way back to Onion Gulch.
You can’t get there these days… the Girl Scouts sold to the Nature Conservancy and private houses now litter the hillsides and post keep out signs… but I bet if you turned me and some of us “older, more mature” selves loose, we could find our ways over those lost trails and tell of when Girl Scouts taught young girls how to lead and have adventures and make fast friendships and where the Sinks are and how to Kiss the Rock and how to creek stomp and how to ride out to Leigh Creek Monument and that fresh brookies beat dehydrated chili mac any day of the week.

We could tell of moving 200 horses across the Red Hills. We could share stories about the Pow Wow telephone and that wonderful day my mom watched me talk to over 100 girls in front of the pictographs with Indian flute music in the background and an atlatl demonstration that impressed even me… We could tell stories of individual horses… We could tell of old cowboys (and young). Of Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom. Of Tractor Turn. Of bruise contests. Of just having the times of our lives.

I should try to make a movie about that place… Get those memories down on video but I suppose there are too many and it’d be sooo much work! Thousands of girls went to camp there… oh, it was a magical place and time!

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10 thoughts on “Magical Place”

  1. Joanne says:
    September 1, 2023 at 12:48 AM

    What a wonderful experience for all those Girl Scouts you took on camping adventures. I’m sure they’ll have many stories to tell their Grandkids. Life was an adventure back then.

    Reply
  2. Dannette Marie Genasci says:
    August 29, 2023 at 6:11 PM

    Dee here- Saddle Straddle 1980. How about the flying elephant caves? Ohhhhhh, and the great tan I thought I finally attained, only to have it wash off in the shower- after 6 days of being out in the Wyoming red dirt wild. (Dannette Genasci from St. Louis- rode Mohawk.) The Swaps. I still have them. I am still close to that Wyoming feeling. Lived in Billings for a while.

    Reply
  3. Joan Wood says:
    August 29, 2023 at 11:41 AM

    When you get to a “certain age” (or older) you have wonderful memories. Have you ever thought of writing a book? We already know you are a wonderful writer and that would be something you could start and stop, perhaps easier than a movie. I even have a title for you. “Girl Scout Memories” sounds like a winner to me. Perhaps something for the Ten Sleep library.

    Reply
  4. Mary Ann Naugle says:
    August 29, 2023 at 7:25 AM

    Awesome area. These were good times and met many friends. The experience made fall in love with the west

    Reply
  5. Erin Aten says:
    August 28, 2023 at 2:42 PM

    It was magical place. It was a privilege to work there.

    Reply
  6. KJ says:
    August 28, 2023 at 6:53 AM

    Take me home….we should take a horseback ride…and re- live it…one… more …time.

    Reply
    1. Jean says:
      August 29, 2023 at 6:57 AM

      I agree!

      Reply
  7. Marilyn says:
    August 28, 2023 at 4:27 AM

    Sounds like these adventures might be of interest to the Girl Scouts, as part of their history archives. A video, or a book of memories and photos
    from your experience as a leader would be a fun, invaluable memoire.

    Reply
  8. Susan says:
    August 28, 2023 at 3:54 AM

    Thanks for the ride back memory lane! I would have loved that too!

    Reply
  9. Barbara L. says:
    August 28, 2023 at 12:19 AM

    A magical time, indeed! I would have loved to have this experience in my Girl Scout days.

    Reply

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Carol, Wyoming rancher

Since 2008, I’ve kept this photographic journal of life on our working Wyoming ranch.  I share ranch work, my family, crafts and DIY, my English Shepherds, Bravo and Indy, and a love for this land.  Enjoy this red dirt country!

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