Women Hunting Outdoor Experiences

Heather Turpen is no stranger to camping. Having grown up in Wyoming, she has gone days without a shower and brushed her teeth with creek water.

Still, the school counselor from Laramie wasn’t quite prepared for the lessons she learned during a weekend-long outdoor program for women, called Becoming an Outdoors Woman.

Sponsored by the state, the program opened up a world of new ways for Turpen and about 60 other women to appreciate the back country. Turpen said her participation in the program this summer gave her skills in mountain biking and canoeing.

She also learned something new about horse-packing, which she did as a child. One lesson was that brushing her teeth with creek water is not a good idea anymore because of giardia and other parasites.

“It has been so many years,” Turpen said. “Things have changed a lot, such as where you can have a fire, rules against burning trash. And back then, you didn’t have to worry about giardia. We used to drink right out of the stream.”

The retreat is designed to boost and preserve the wilderness tradition that is commonly passed from father to son. The tradition is being lost partly because single mothers are a growing segment of the population, said Helen McCracken, who coordinates the program for the Wyoming Fish and Game Department.

“There are a great many single moms raising their kids, and because the moms don’t have this outdoor training, the kids don’t have it either,” she said.

About 20,000 women a year attend about 400 Becoming an Outdoors Woman programs in 44 states and several Canadian provinces.

The program stems from a 1990 conference at the University of Wisconsin that found women were discouraged from some outdoor sports by the lack of female role models and the fear of looking stupid. The program is an attempt to teach women these skills in a nurturing, noncompetitive environment.

The three-day Wyoming retreat surprises many first-time participants because it does not involve cooking or sleeping in a tent. At a cost of $100 per person, each participant stays in a cabin with several other women and is treated to showers and cooked meals. A sleeping bag and pillow are all that are required from home.

During the day, about 20 instructors teach participants how to hunt, shoot, fish, canoe, cook in the outdoors, mountain bike and read a compass, among other things. Gentle encouragement is the theme, not baptism by fire.

“They find it’s like learning to drive a car,” McCracken said. “If you try to learn with your spouse, you might end up in divorce court.”

One of the more intimidating courses--hunting--is growing in popularity, however. The course teaches women about the hunting process, starting with applying for a permit and deciding what area and species they want to hunt. Then the women are taken on a mock hunt with wildlife decoys. Besides learning what is an ethical shot, they learn how to chase a shot animal and field-dress it.

The camp, near Dubois with a stunning view of the Wind River Mountains, attracts people from various walks of life. There are teachers, computer technicians, school counselors. They come from California, Colorado, Texas, Georgia and New Hampshire.

The women must be at least 18 to join. Some participants have been in their 70s, McCracken said.

This is Wyoming’s fifth year of sponsoring its version of the program, which takes place in mid-June. Applications are available in early February; the deadline for applying is April 20.

“Each year we turn people down because the demand is greater than we can meet,” McCracken said.