Camp Low Echo

Girl Scouts don't usually attend resident camps as a troop like Boy Scouts do. They usually sign up and attend as individual girls or two or three together and are sent off by themselves for the week but this little camp in the Cascades offers a weekend troop camp at the end of their season. Isn't it beautiful? There's a Boy Scout camp across the lake but they were smart enough to keep the length of the lake between the two camps.

So our troop attended with fourteen girls and four adults and had a great time in spite of the latrines. You know, there has to be something bad at a camp in order for it to be remembered. Last time it was the mosquitoes and the lightning storm. This time it was the latrines.

How can I describe the magnificent odor of our latrine? Perhaps I can quote Pat McManus; "It would give an otherwise indiscriminate hyena a fit of the dry-heaves." They said they'd limed it a number of times but one dad suggested in a phone consultation that they needed to add yeast and sugar. The lime will work on the smell, but yeast was needed to break the stuff down.

The adults' tent was quite nearby but, thankfully, the odor didn't penetrate the canvas much as long as the door was kept zipped and body spray was liberally released into the air. We overheard one girl whisper to her buddy late the first night, "I'm going in....wish me luck!"

The swim area with the tip of Mt. McGloughlin in the background. They had the usual swim area divided into three sections and the obligatory canoes but they also had some leg-powered paddle-boats that the girls enjoyed immensely.

One of the crafts they did was learn to weave some gimp into a lanyard. Some of the girls already knew how and were able to help those who didn't. Here's Richelle working on hers while wearing her brand-new camp hoody that she'd bought earlier at the trading post. Another girl also bought a hoody and didn't take it off until sometime after her mom picked her up when we got back Sunday afternoon.


Hauling the luggage up to the parking lot. Neat little carts and we had no trouble getting the girls to pull them.

It was a three-hour drive each way plus time to let the restless natives out to run off energy but it's an experience I'm game to do again. As long as the latrines smell better. And the girls fall asleep before 1am, preferably before 11pm. And our little Vesuvius goes dormant - that's the fourth time and her mom's coming next time; we can't find a common denominator and are wondering if it's a mental thing. She's perfectly fine the next day, eats a hearty breakfast and participates fully in all the activities but the evening or night before she has a migraine and then throws up.

Yup. You never know what's in store when you take fourteen assorted girls camping for two nights.