REEL WOMEN; MORE DOORS HAVE OPENED FOR THOSE WHO'VE FELT EXCLUDED FROM OUTDOORS.

Byline: Brett Pauly Daily News Staff Writer

As she prepared to tackle the wilderness with a map and compass in hand, Carrie Carpenter remembered her youth and the frustrations over being unable to hunt with her brother and father.

``I was never included, nor was I ever taught how to handle a gun. It was a man's sport,'' said Carpenter, 59, of Reseda. ``It was not open to women, nor did I know anyone in my family or any other women who were interested in doing that.

``Now I am curious,'' she said, poring over charted destinations and routes with three other lady trailblazers. ``I'm just catching up in things I've wanted to do for years.''

The wilderness, in this case, was a Boy Scouts camp near Santa Barbara County's Lake Cachuma. Instead of tracking deer or bear, she was employing her new-found orienteering skills to hunt down wooden wedges cut in the shapes of animals that were strewn about the compound.

As one of more than 100 participants in the three-day seminar, ``Becoming an Outdoors-Woman,'' Carpenter was gaining a new appreciation for nature, along with a strong sense of confidence instilled and reinforced by bonding with other women.

More women, many of whom were initially steered away from outdoor sports by stereotyping, are finding they can fend for themselves in the wilderness, from fishing and hunting to backpacking and rock climbing to snorkeling, canoeing and dogsledding.

And ``Becoming an Outdoors-Woman,'' a hunting, fishing and overall recreation program offered in 44 states and eight Canadian provinces, has served as a springboard for dozens of similar projects and outdoor-oriented women's organizations.

``We opened up their eyes,'' said Diane Lueck, national program director for BOW, initiated in 1991 by the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point's College of Natural Resources. ``That was the goal, to raise awareness for the need for programs for women, and I think that's happened. If that was our one goal, we've been really, really successful.''

The stats appear to be in Lueck's favor. The number of female firearm hunters increased by 49 percent from 1989 to 1996, a jump from 1.75 million to 2.6 million, according to surveys conducted by the National Sporting Goods Association. And while women represented 31.4 percent of the fishing population in 1991, the proportion rose to 35.1 percent by 1996, reflective of the 22 percent increase in women anglers - 13.1 million to 16 million - during that period.

Researchers note the findings are far from definitive, however; survey methodologies vary and so do results.

Within BOW, enrollment has seen dramatic gains. There were 106 participants at the inaugural seminar in 1991; this year, more than 10,000 women will take a course. California's seventh biannual BOW program, run in conjunction with the state Department of Fish and Game, will be offered Sept. 26-28 at Blairsden's Feather River Inn. A similar program - sans fishing and hunting, heavy on camping and hiking, operated by the state Department of Parks and Recreation - is slated for Oct. 30 to Nov. 2 at Malibu Creek State Park.

``I do think probably the time was right,'' said Lueck, whose program has graduated more than 35,000 participants, ranging in age from 18 to 84, since its inception. ``Had this started 20 years ago, maybe it wouldn't have gone so well.''

Peg Lonnquist, executive director of Woodswomen, a women-only adventure travel organization in Minneapolis celebrating its 20th anniversary, agreed.

``This generation of women grew up with Title IX, and they know they have strong bodies,'' Lonnquist said. ``They don't question they can go out in the woods and be involved in these activities.''

``Even the older women are kind of surprised at themselves that they are able to do these activities,'' Lueck said.

Some women had never spent the night in a tent, or, if they had, it was a man who had set it up and staked it down. Some had been told they were too frail and fragile to wander into the wilds without a man, let alone. Others are divorced or widowed and have lost a nature lover in their life. And still others look to the outdoors because their husbands, boyfriends, children or female friends aren't interested.

``It's hard for me to find a companion. Most of the friends I have don't regard any of this as of particular interest,'' said Mary Carol Rudin of Bel-Air, registered in her second BOW seminar.

Last year at a Northern California workshop, she took shotgun and rifle shooting, firearms safety and a wildlife biology course. In June at Lake Cachuma, she signed up for map and compass reading, field orienteering and fly-fishing.

``If you are an urban dweller like I am, it brings you into another kind of contact with the outdoors and the earth and nature that you might not otherwise experience if you don't have friends who are into that,'' Rudin said. ``I'd like to be more comfortable in the outdoors, just as I am in the city.''

Tied by common threads of gender and inexperience, program enrollees enjoy a feeling of accomplishment, a sense of adventure and increased levels of confidence, self-esteem and relaxation.

``Because we're women together, I don't feel intimidated by things I don't know, because they want to share their experience,'' the widowed Carpenter said. ``If you're with other women and you do stupid things or ask stupid questions, it isn't quite as degrading as it is if you ask a dumb question in front of a guy who has no patience.

``I think men assume you should know a lot - things that have become second nature to them. I say, `Hey, you had to learn it, too. Someone had to tell you.' ''

Gearing up for the Dutch oven cooking class at Cachuma, Louise Aldrich, and her sister, Joanne Cashman, both of West Hills, were glad there were ``no men huffing and puffing around saying they knew more,'' as Aldrich phrased it.

``Many of the women were there because they had boyfriends teaching them, but they weren't addressing size, capability and strength,'' Aldrich said upon returning home. ``Many women didn't have the right equipment - waders that didn't fit properly, bows and firearms that were too heavy and backpacks that were too big.''

Between rifle rounds at the target range, Tamara Carousos of Vacaville said her husband, a hunter, encouraged her to take the BOW workshop because he wasn't trained to teach her how to shoot. ``So you can learn how to do it correctly the first time,'' she said.

``Yeah,'' Brea's Lydia Dodson-Lehrer chimed in, ``so you don't get into bad habits, like the guys already have.''

Women are coming to a greater understanding they can do physically demanding activities in the wilds, regardless of stature and often solo, said Kathy Etling of St. Louis, a BOW instructor and author of ``Hunting Superbucks: How to Find and Hunt Today's Trophy Mule and Whitetail Deer.''

``When I go shoot a deer, I don't get my husband, I get my horse,'' said Etling, who also tracks turkey, pronghorn antelope, elk, bear and bighorn sheep. ``I lasso a rope around the antlers. My horse loves to drag deer. Other women get their friends to help pull deer out.

``Women have realized that men have had the fun all along,'' she said of the growing number of women's outdoors programs.

Burbank's Nan Caddel said she felt the spirit and inspiration of a sisterhood in nature during the Cachuma seminar.

``It was quite amazing to see how many women from different daily walks of life share an interest and love in camping and hiking, as well as archery, boating, shooting and fishing,'' Caddel said. ``I think there is a lot of encouragement for women to be much more active in the outdoors.''

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Associated Press