When I’m asked how I got into the outdoor education and recreation field of work, the answer is usually something along the lines of “I’ve always loved the outdoors; I was raised as a wild child; I grew up on the farm; my parents raised us without electronics and internet and the cabbage patch was our playground,” etc. etc. All of those things are true! Although, they are edited for interviews and so I look semi-respectable in my field. The truth be told, my outdoor livelihood was born out of trauma, out of running for my life, and from buttermilk biscuits. Have you ever been chased by a mountain lion at 3am, by yourself, in the middle of the Hill Country?

Let me backtrack. When I was 16, I started working for a boy scout camp. “A girl at a boy scout camp??” is exactly what you’re thinking, and you are right. It was exactly as bad as you are imagining, and for whatever reason, I stayed for three summers! Be prepared for more of those stories, they are quite… exciting. My first two years at this camp, I worked in the kitchen. Fitting for a girl at a boy scout camp, don’t you think? Every Wednesday morning, the kitchen staff got up extra early to go and make homemade biscuits for the campers and usually we all rode down to the kitchen together. It was about a mile from staff housing to the kitchen walking, but it was relatively fast by car! If you walked, you had to go down a rocky trail from staff housing, through the valley and across the river, and up a hill aptly called “cardiac hill” for its tendency to encourage fat scout masters to finally have those heart attacks that their doctors keep warning them about.

For whatever reason, this Wednesday I was going in early by myself, and I didn’t own a car, so I was readying myself to make my usual walk, just in the dead of night. I got ready in my uniform, armed with my headlamp and a spatula and headed out around 3am. Now, Texas is spooky to begin with. Racists, men who don’t see an issue with catcalling, and everyone is illegally armed. But at night it somehow gets worse? Everything makes haunting noises, from owls, to coyotes, to snakes. Those day-time obstacles still exist, but the risk seems to be higher at night. So you can imagine the kind of stress I was under.

About halfway down staff hill, a set of trees on my right started shaking. I can hear growling, hear large feet padding through the undergrowth, and I can see glowing eyes through the cedar. Brandishing my spatula like a weapon, my heart in my throat, I ran down staff hill, through the valley, and up cardiac hill faster than you could say “I ran down staff hill, through the valley, and up cardiac hill.” When I made it to the kitchen, I definitely threw up in fear. My hair became a little grayer, my life became a little shorter, yet I had made it. I still made those biscuits on time, somehow. They were extra delicious this day, baked with the new love for life I had very recently come across.

After that incident, the camp director moved me to teach in COPE and climbing so I didn’t have to walk by myself at night in the cougar-infested Hill Country. From there, my experience meant I could pretty much work at any ropes course, and could easily learn any outdoor skills from there. The rest is history! I worked for an outdoor program in my college, for many ropes courses and zip line tours, and for several adventure and recreation companies.

Without that cougar, which the camp has affectionately named Helen, I might never have had to leave the perils of kitchen work for the safety of the outdoors. The next time you’re having a bout with imposter syndrome because of your lack of knowledge or experience, I suggest waking up early and making buttermilk biscuits. Opportunities seem to rise with the dough.