Day 1: The Beginning

This is the very first sketch I drew at Cardigan Lodge. My group was doing an excercise where we blindfolded each other in pairs to a tree then back again. We then unblindfolded our peers so they could try and locate their tree again. Once they found their tree the person would sketch their tree in their notebooks. I drew an American Beech Tree that had smooth bark on one side and rough bark on the other. The tree seem to be fairly young and thriving in its forest home.

Regions

Driving down the road to the lodge we are surrounded by all different characteristics defining this as its own region at the base of the mountain. From the bus window I see rolling flats filled with deciduous trees and then a slight incline to the AMC lodge parking lot. We stop and have a brief talk from one of the trail guides then set off to the small tree surrounded patch of grass to play games with our session. We meet our instructors and begin our hike with our hiking groups for the three days.After that we gather and eat lunch before heading out on our first hike. We venture down the nature trail to sketch different foliage of the region, investigate the stream bed close by to take samples, and to sketch some more in our sketch books. On the way we notice how the ground, plants, and trees change as we got closer to the stream, indicating that some of the plants prefer to live closer to a more saturated area. Spruce was one tree that we saw more clumped around the stream and we also saw more ground plants. This may be a change in regions, from a dryer area to a moist region around the stream bed. Once finished, we ventured back for an hour of free time and dinner with the other groups. We ate and soon went back outside for a night hike around the lodge. My group went out into the dark woods and listened to owls and other animals, then climbed to the top of a hill and watched the eclipse take place. The dark proved to be a different region with new animals coming out, and we took in the landscape in a totally different way. In conclusion, Day one presented many different ways of showing regions around the lodge at Cardigan.

We also went for two other days: Monday: Main hike, and Tuesday: Short hike and Departure