Blue Group
On the first day of the trip to the Mt. Cardigan AMC lodge, everyone on session two got on a bus and started the long journey towards Cardigan. The first session had arrived back at the school the day before. Anyway, it was a long ride full of car breakdowns, horses, and fluffy cows, but when we got there, we arrived with our bags to see a large white building next to a somewhat large field. We went inside through a mudroom of sorts, went upstairs to find our bunks, and started to unpack. There were about three or four bunk beds in each room. We went back downstairs, ate our packed lunches in the dining area and went outside to get introduced to our guides. I was in Gretchen's group. After being acquainted, we all did a quick sketch of the lodge, took it's waypoint, or latitude and longitude, and started our first hike.
Along the way, we learned so much about different types of trees, such as Hemlocks, Basswoods, Aspens, Ashes, Spruces, and even a Hemaple, or Maplock. Whatever you want to call it, it was a cool hybrid between a Hemlock and a Maple. It was really helpful to have Mr. Woolner come along because he taught us so much! There were mushrooms everywhere, wherever we looked! There was also an abandoned cellar hole that had a wall of stones. This is a good example of Human/Environment Interaction because humans made the cellar hole, changing the environment. At one point, we saw what looked like a ciff. A storm had hit the area, creating an overhang of thick dirt covered in overturned trees with root systems still attached, perfect for sitting down on to take a break. There was also an amazing waterfall, called Welton Falls, with a cave that we could walk around in and from which we could look down at the waterfall. There were railings here that are also a good example of Human/Environment Interaction. As we kept walking on the path, the view of the waterfall became even better! I could see the cave we were in, but also a different cave under the first one that the waterfall was dipping into, making it look like a glistening pool in the middle of nowhere.
Me being the slowest one, as usual, we began our journey back to the lodge, tired and hungry, and yet full of adventure. When we got back, we had an hour of free time before dinner and I used most of that time to take off my gear and rest. I was happy to see that the AMC people had set up a make-your-taco dinner and my mouth watered as the tables went up one by one to fill their plates. After dinner, we all got with our groups and went outside to do night activities. The first one my group did was called Bat. We all got in a circle and Gretchen blind-folded one person, the bat, and told them that they needed to tag another person, the moth, in order to win. The rest of us were trees and whenever the bat got to close to us, we would say something like "tree." If the bat said "bat," the moth had to say something back. This kept going until everyone had the chance to be a bat and a moth. The second activity we did started with everyone getting behind a line and Gretchen going down the road into the dark. Another adult told us when the next person could go. I didn't realize that I was the first one in line. I was walking into the dark as people called after me, "good luck." I kept walking until I was shrouded by light and I kept walking hesitantly into the dark. Then I saw a figure...Gretchen! I asked her what we were doing and she told me to pose and be quiet. People kept walking into the dark, getting creeped out halfway through the walk every time until everyone was in a pose, being somewhat quiet, in the dark. She said the point of the activity was for us to learn that when the light blinded us we couldn't see people doing poses in the dark until our eyes got used to it. The third activity was the best one. Everyone was blindfolded, again, and we held on to each other's shoulders as we walked along a path leading up to the mountains. We stumbled and giggled and laughed the whole time until we finally stopped and took our blindfolds off. At first it seemed like we were lost in the woods, but then our eyes adjusted and we discovered that we were in the middle of the path. We headed back to the lodge and got ready for bed before we gathered in the living room area for Mr. Woolner to read us stories. Then we all headed up to bed, but most of us probably stayed up pretty late. I had a great first day!
Mt. Cardigan Day 1 by CD is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.