Day 2 of the Cardigan Trek
September 28, 2015
By Shelby M.
Green Group
This is the top of Firescrew.
This is a drawing of an owl pellet that we found on the trial for Firescrew to Cardigan.
Once I woke up and got everything together I had breakfast. Once breakfast was done everyone got their lunches together. Once everyone had gotten their lunches done each group got into their groups. My group decided that we would hike the trail to Firescrew and then while on the trail from Firescrew to Cardigan the was a cave and we would take a detour and go see the cave. Once we had decided where we were going to go we started up the trail. Once on the trail there were many steep hills that we had to climb. While climbing these cliffs we had many water breaks and lots of snacks. Many times we thought that we were at the top of Firescrew but Robin told us that we were barely halfway. At many of the cliffs we did exercises or games such as trying to find the clothes pine and drawing what we saw around the area we were in. At one point in the trip up to Firescrew we found Indian Cucumbers. Many people said they liked them so I gave one a try. Now I think I shouldn’t have tried one because I didn’t like cucumber but I was willing to give it a try. After many cliffs we got to a huge flat bed of rock. At this point we were sure we were at the top of Firescrew. We decided that we should get a snack and some water. We stayed at this bed of rock for about 15 to 20 minutes. Then Tabby’s group came up to the flatbed of rock. We all stood there for a while and the my group started our journey once again. After the first fake summits we got many more. Every time we saw huge cliffs we were sure that we were very close. After 10 cliffs we climbed we finally got to a massive rock. We were so sure that we had made it. Once we climbed the huge rock we were so happy and relieved that we had made it to the top of the mountain. When we had gotten a drink of water we had decided we would have lunch here. After we finished eating we sketched the view from the top of Firescrew. Right before we were leaving Tabby’s group got up to the mountain. We all said hi and then yet again my group set off to Cardigan. While we're taking the trail we were looking for signs for the cave we wanted to look at. We must have not looked good enough because we couldn't find where the cave was. While we were on the trail to Cardigan we found an owl pellet and decided to sketch it. Again while we were sketching the owl pellet we saw Tabby’s group and said hello. All throughout the day we kept seeing Tabby’s group. Once we had gotten to the top of Cardigan we didn’t see anyone up there so we assumed that we were the first to make up two mountains. We were right because right after my group had gotten up Cardigan all the other groups got up. One 3 out of the 4 groups were up on Cardigan everyone took a picture. Since everyone in my group wanted to get to the lodge first we drew the view from Cardigan and started on our trek down the mountain. Climbing down the mountain was very hard since the cliffs were so steep. Once we had gotten to the ends of some of the cliffs it was starting to sprinkle out. We either had the decision to take the longer route that wasn’t as steep or the shorter route that was really steep. My group decide to take the ski route (the shorter one). Twice on this trail someone in my group fell and hurt there ankle but got right back up and we started again down the mountain. When we got to the end of the ski trail we were all so happy. We took a break and had some snack before we headed off again. While we were walking the trail we had to take a bridge to get to the other side. We decided that we would sketch the bridge. While we were sketching Tabby’s group came again and we said hi yet again. Once we had all finished our sketches we headed back for the lodge. We took the Manning Trail all the way back to the Lodge. Once we got to the lodge we realized that no one had gotten back yet. Once everyone had gotten back we had dinner and then Mr. Woolner read stories and then everyone headed off for bed. A theme that I learned on “Day 2” was Regions. I learned this because we hiked up 2 mountains and I noticed that when you got to different heights different types of shrubs and trees appeared and disappeared.
