Camp Skymeadow

Laurel and I just got back home from Camp Skymeadow, where we went with some of the kids and moms from our Girl Scout troop. This was my first summer camp experience, and the first time we did a sleep away event with the girls from the troop. Camp Skymeadow is one of four camps owned by the Girl Scouts of Western PA. It's actually only 30 miles or so from my doorstep, but with almost 371 acres of hilly forest and meadow, it feels much further away. Our city girls were delighted by our green surroundings, the songs of the birds that woke us up, and the frogs and bugs they found when hiking around. The highlight, of course, was the horse riding lesson. When we sold cookies last winter, we donated some of the money to an organization for homeless girls and women, and then had to decide as a group how to use the rest. The girls wanted to go to horse camp and it was kind of an organizational challenge to figure out how to make that work. In the end 7 of our 10 girls were able to come, we had 3 older girls from other troops that meet at our school at the same time, and five moms and leaders. The 15 of us slept in a lodge, which had room for far more, but we were the only ones there. The camp we chose to do included all of our meals and activities, so all we had to do was show up.

The camp counselors were all in their teens/the early 20s. A bunch of them were from Wales and Scotland and all of them were fun, enthusiastic, patient with our little girls and knew tons of Girl Scout songs. The camp is fairly spread out, so we had to do a lot of walking. Just getting everybody from place to place required lots of extra time so they could stop and look into the pond, or count fireflies or look for hiking sticks. We chose to do horse riding, archery, arts and crafts and swimming. The adults got turns at all the activities, and it was definitely a chance for everybody to relax and have fun together. The first night we went to an all-camp bonfire, and the second night we had our own. Smores both nights, obviously. It was fun to teach the little girls about gathering kindling and stacking logs. Our older girls set the fire and led songs and organized marshmallow roasting.

The communication from GSWPA was pretty terrible. Basically non-existent. We didn't even get an emailed receipt that we had paid or confirmation that we registered. My co-leader spent the week before trying to track this information down to make sure they actually had spots for us at Skymeadow. We found the link for the health and code of conduct paperwork on our own. It almost seemed like the camp staff didn't know we were coming or what kind of camp experience we had registered for her. To their credit, they made us feel welcome immediately and got us an agenda for our activities. Two of the women in our group are very experienced with Girl Scouts, so they were annoyed by the lack of information, but not too surprised by it. They knew it would work out and it did. I wonder if maybe we're all just used to Too Much Information all the time and we feel awkward and scared when we don't get all the details in advance, color coded and cross referenced against standards and safety checkpoints. It's camp. Keep it simple.

This was Laurel's second camp experience this summer, and I honestly think she would be ready to go for a week by herself next year. Girl Scouts as an organization can be kind of maddening, but the Girl Scouts themselves? The women who show up year after year for crappy salaries to cook food and train teenage staff and handle maintenance and just generally keep these camps going are some of the most interesting and skilled people I have ever met. The teens and young adults who work as counselors are smart and have strong opinions but are all a little bit weird (in a good way, like they don't care what the world thinks of them). I'm really looking forward to the next camp trip we do with our girls.

I would definitely recommend this camp, but with the caveat that you have to expect some disorganization from GSWPA and you are just going to have to roll with it. It will be worth it, though.