My Amazing Cardigan Trip

Sept. 28-30, 2016

By Cassidy D.

Blue group (D1B2)

The AMC lodge at Cardigan is located N 43 degrees 38' 58.3" and W 0 71 degrees 52' 40.2". It is located in between the pond, N 43 degrees 38' 07.7" W 0 71 degrees 54' 42.0" and Mt. Cardigan, N 43 degrees 38' 58.7" W 0 71 degrees 54’ 51.7” after driving down a long road.

There were a lot of things to see on our trip to Mt. Cardigan. Some of them were physical, like Welton Falls and the Hemaple, or Maplock, a mutant of a Hemlock and a Maple. Of course, there were trees everywhere, some that were really cool. We saw Ash trees, American Basswood trees, Hemlocks, Maples, and so many more. There were also mushrooms just about everywhere we looked. There were some plain white and brown ones, but also some bright red and orange ones! There was a pond across the small dirt road from the lodge and I'm going to say it wasn't man-made or a cultural feature, even if there was a raft right in the middle of it. We went around the pond trying to find bugs, but mostly threw around the rotten crab apples that had fallen into the water. I managed to find two water beetles and a dragonfly nymph, or, in other words, a baby dragonfly.

There were also some cultural features, anything that had to do with humans. The first one was, of course, the lodge. Another one was the fire tower on top of Mt. Cardigan, and the old, rusted, beat up car that was sitting, perfectly immobile, a little up the mountain. It had been brought up there so that its motor could be used to power a ski lift. When we got near the top of one of the mountains we hiked, we could see in the distance a field of windmills, which was a beautiful sight. Also, when we were starting to hike down Mt. Cardigan, and another group was just getting to the top, we saw a dark-colored helicopter fly so close to the mountain it seemed like we could almost touch it! That was so cool to see. There were also lots of small, subtle cultural features of Mt. Cardigan, such as the painted on yellow marks on trees to keep people on the path. There really was so much to see at Cardigan!

We were at Cardigan for three days- Wednesday Sept. 28, Thursday Sept. 29, and Friday Sept. 30.