Empowering Women at Wild Summer Camp

“This is absolutely insane.”

Kerry Malouf, a 34-year-old makeup artist, was standing at the edge of a 75-foot drop in the Sequoia National Forest, her feet planted firmly on the ground, a climbing harness cinched around her waist.

It was the eighth hour of a day that had begun before dawn for Malouf and the 17 other women participating in GIRLteams, a three-day adventure training camp. The women had already kayaked, mountain-biked and hiked across rough terrain.

They had demonstrated that they could use a compass, change a bicycle tire and read a topographic map. They were tired, it was hot and exhaustion was starting to set in. The cliff was the last obstacle.

As Malouf teetered at the edge, her team’s chances rested on her ability to lean back, move her feet and slowly begin to descend the cliff. If she didn’t get down, her teammates would not be allowed to descend.

“I felt like I had never been so scared in my life,” Malouf admitted later. “I knew I had to do it.”

Her teammates cheered her on from above.

“You look good,” one camper told Malouf.

“As long as I look good,” she shouted back with more than a hint of irony. She hadn’t showered in three days. “My god, I couldn’t care less.”

With that, she pushed off and began to rappel down. Less than a half-hour later, Malouf and her five teammates--Team Black and Blue, as its members had nicknamed themselves--safely returned to their base camp, where they dunked themselves, fully clothed, in the Kern River.

GIRLteams--designed as part empowerment and part instruction for the women who participate--is the brainchild of Scott Zagarino, a former professional triathlete and adventure racer and the father of two daughters.

As adventure racing has grown in popularity, training camps have sprung up in Southern California for both seasoned racers and novices. Almost all of the camps use adventure racing as a metaphor for overcoming obstacles in everyday life. Though some camps simulate 24-to 36-hour races, others help develop team dynamics; still others teach particular skills.

GIRLteams is the only local camp to cater exclusively to women.

Zagarino promotes the camp as a way for women to overcome fears, as well as to develop a sense of belonging to a larger community of women.

Ranging in age from 13 to 51, the 18 women attending the recent camp arrived on a Friday morning from as far away as St. Louis. After gathering in Santa Monica for a yoga class and climbing lessons at a local gym, the group traveled by van to Keyesville, above Bakersfield in the Kern River Valley.

There they were schooled in mountain biking, kayaking and following a course with compass and map, mostly by female instructors. On the third day, they were divided into three teams to demonstrate what they had learned in a mock adventure race.

Participants, who paid $700 each to attend the camp, were screened beforehand to ensure that they had the strength to move quickly from one sport to the next, with only a few minutes between to change or eat.

When they did eat, they ate well: eggs, cereal, tortilla and toast in the morning; pasta, sandwiches and stir-fry at midday; roasted chicken and turkey Bolognese for dinner--and Gatorade and Red Bull in between.

Throughout the three days, the participants found strength--and humor--in one another.

“There goes my chances for a leg wax on Monday,” said Amy Sommer, an independent producer, as she cheerily picked herself up after her third attempt at getting down a steep incline on a mountain bike, brushing dirt from a series of cuts and scrapes on her legs. She made it down the hill on her fifth attempt as the other women cheered her on.

“I was kind of surprised and proud of myself that I did it,” she said later.

There were many small triumphs along the way. For Julie Rhee, 30, a financial analyst from Venice, success came when she was the first among her teammates to read and understand a detailed topographic map.

“OK, so this is our road,” she said, concentrating hard on the gray line that squiggled across the page.

“You line it up to the north,” teammate Malouf prompted, handing her the team’s compass.

“Like that?” Rhee asked, pointing to a spot on the map with a pine needle. “So that means we are ... right here!”

For Malouf, learning skills and especially summoning the courage to rappel down a cliff helped her confront a very different sort of challenge. From the outdoor camp, she took home a strengthened resolve to mend a shaky marital relationship.

“The trip taught me so much,” she said. “I can be very clear about how I feel. I came home and talked to my husband; I was able to really talk to him, communicate with him. It’s a whole new step in our relationship.”

The camp gave Sommer an opportunity to reevaluate her self-image. “The picture I carry around of myself is different,” she said a week later. “It’s a little more confident. More bruised, more in need of Advil, perhaps, but it’s a stronger picture and I kind of like it.”

Only a handful of the women participating in GIRLteams planned to enter real adventure races. But most said they had been inspired by the skills they had acquired and the knowledge of how much they could endure.

Before the group left Keyesville, Isabelle Fox, a film director, spoke of plans she had already formed to continue the climbing, biking and kayaking after she returned home to Malibu.

“This was such a great appetizer,” Fox said. “My husband won’t know what hit him.”