My Cardigan Trip

September 27-29, 2015

Red Group Day 2 Block 3

By Caroline B

Entering Cardigan Mountain State Forest

The latitude of Mount Cardigan Lodge is 43 degrees 38 minutes 58 seconds north, the longitude is 71 degrees 52 minutes 41.5 seconds west, the elevation is 1409 feet. The elevation of Mount Cardigan summit is 3,156 feet and is a 2.6 mile hike one way. Cardigan lodge is located in Alexandria New Hampshire, it is around 9 miles from the town Bristol, and is also close to Orange (both town in New Hampshire).Bailey Brook happens to run just past Cardigan lodge and Cardigan is about 13 miles from the Newfound Lake. Cardigan lodge also is located on Shem Valley Road and is also located in the northern region of New Hampshire.

Cardigan Mountain has lots of physical geography, including mountains, bodies of water, animals, and forest's. Cardigan Mountain has few bodies of water, including the Bailey Brook, these small bodies of water have mossy, slippery rocks,a thin or a small amount of water, and had many water bugs laying on the surface. The stream water that runs through the Nature Trail was cold, shallow, and had a constant oxygen level. Their is lots of forests at Cardigan Mountain, that had all sorts of trees maples, birches, american beech, and pines. In the forests we saw many trees, leaves, rocks, and bushes and all different sorts of plants, and the forests had many thick tree roots, small plants, bumpy rocky, chirping birds, bushes and trees. Also these forests have thick canopies of trees, steep rugged hills, rocks, ferns, and a dirt stained path. We saw many small animals at Cardigan, birds, chipmunks, squirrels, salamanders, frogs, small fish, and waterbugs. These animals we saw were small and live throughout the mountain on/in endless growth and nature. We saw many mountains at the summit that were far away and were at a high elevation curving through the clouds. We hiked mount Cardigan which is a mountain that has been in its place for billions of years, which is physical geography because its nature, wildlife and has been around for years developing and growing to contain even more physical geography.

Cardigan Mountain has some cultural geography including on the top of the summit the fire tower a recognizable landmark,that is still used today. Many bridges occur on the hike when you are going over a body of water or a ditch in the ground. Bridges are made of a wood structure that you walk over to be protected from you from any body of water or a ditch in the ground. The fire tower on the top of the summit, it is a tall structure, that happens to look pretty unstable, especially with the elevation increase so the wind is stronger, the tower is tall, shabby, and has a wood skybox-structure you can enter. The fire tower on Mount Cardigan is also known as Warden's Cabin fire tower, the tower was used to detect a fire over a large viewing range.

The the group of students in session one, were at Cardigan for 3 days Cardigan from Septemeber 27 Sunday, Monday 28, and Tuesday 29.