My Cardigan Mountain School Trip

September 30 - October 2, 2015

By Emily N

Yellow color group

This is the view of Cardigan Mountain and Firescrew Mountain from the AMC lodge.

Cardigan Mountain is located on the border between Orange and Alexandria, NH. The mountain sits in between both Orange and Firescrew mountains. The Cardigan Mountain state forest is surrounded by more state forests and parks such as Province Road State Forest, Cardigan Mountain State Park, and Wellington State Park. Cardigan is almost centered in the middle of New Hampshire, but slightly up north. The coordinates of the Cardigan Mountain summit are about 4 degrees, 38 minutes, and 59 seconds North, and 71 degrees, 5 minutes, 53 seconds West.

Cardigan Mountain is heavily wooded, with both coniferous and deciduous trees. With dozens of little streams running down from the top, Cardigan and Firescrew are healthy, wet enviormnments perfect for many animals. The summit of Cardigan is solid bare rock, due to a large wildfire in 1855, which wiped out much of the summit's plant life. Cardigan and Firescrew mountains have a variety of different types of trees, such as the scotch pine and red maple. Many other plants such as mosses and ferns also live here. This provides a good habitat for many birds, such as chickadees and owls, and other animals like squirrells.

Cardigan Mountain has been changed a lot by people. For instance, there are dozens of heavily worn trails all over the mountain. ALong the trails you will also see trail marks painted onto some trees to show you which way the path goes.The bare summit holds a fire tower, built in 1924. At the bottom of the big mountain, there is a large AMC (Appalachian Mountain Club) hut, and big parking lot. In the forests on Cardigan and Firescrew you can find the remains of many old house foundations and barns. There are also many rock walls all over the area. Overall, Cardigan mountain has been changed a lot by people.

We were at Cardigan for three days, Wednesday, 30 (day 1), Thursday 1 (day 2), and Friday 2 (day 3).