Region: Day 2

      As I woke up on day two very tired. I knew I had to get up to put all of my items I would need for the long hike coming for today. We would be climbing up Firescrew and then go on the saddle to Cardigan. When we got to the top, we would hike down the Alexandria ski trail to the Manning Trail and then get back to the AMC lodge, which is a Region in New Hampshire.

      Anyways, I knew that we had a big day today, so I got up and put all of my layers, a hat and some gloves, along with some water, and snacks into my hiking pack. We went downstairs and ate some muffins, eggs, bacon and sausage. It was a very good meal, and it helped all of us make it to the top. After breakfast, we made sure that we had gotten all of our stuff together for the hike, then we came downstairs and made our lunch, I made a PB&J, and packed two apples and a raspberry Nutrigrain bar.

      We finished making our lunches and then grouped up. We stopped on the Manning Trail and played steal the bacon. Fern put her water bottle on the ground, and we tried to bring it back to the end line without Fern guessing who had the bottle. The Manning Trail is a Region of the Cardigan Mountain trails, and to get to the top. We went the same way we went on day one, just much farther up that trail, the Nature Trail. When we got to our leaf gradients, we stopped and had a long break, we were neck and neck with Andy's group but we did eventually beat them to the summit of Cardigan. We kept hiking and stopping to sketch or get a snack/ water break a few more times until we got to the first false summit of Firescrew Mountain which is apart of the White Mountains region.

      When we got to the first false summit, we stopped took some pictures, had a water break and then kept trekking up the mountain. We stopped a few more times, then finally got to a where we could see the summit. It was where the alpine bog was. It was only 1 of a few in the state. We got there and Fern told us about the Hempel, and that it could only be found in this Region of the world. The alpine bog was very cool, on the bottom of it was mud, but it also had some type moss on the bottom. The water was very cold, and it was pretty clear. We had a snack in the region that the alpine pond was in and then walked about 15ft. in elevation, and about 100 feet to the very summit of Firescrew.

      We sat down on Firescrew and had lunch, I sat with Kally, a few others and Fern. The boys went to a area behind some trees, where you could see Mt. Cardigan right in front of you. Sara and her dad sat near the Region of the tallest point of the summit. We sat down and about two thirds the way through lunch, a helicopter came very close to summit, and the people inside of it waved to us, and we waved back. But then they circled the summit once or twice and then tried to land about 50 feet away from us, we could feel the wind from the propellers spinning we were so close. The helicopter could not land because it was too slanted where they were trying to land, so they went in the saddle of Firescrew and Cardigan and landed there. One of the occupants got out of the helicopter, I'm not sure what he did then. It was soo cool how the helicopter landed right in front of us.

      We finished lunch then headed onto the saddle, then up the steep rock face to get to the top. We finally made it to the top, it took forever. We saw two other groups and we took group photos and got to explore the summit. We headed back down after about ten minutes passed by. We headed down the Alexandria Ski trail after taking a break at the fire wardens shack. The ski trail was pretty steep, but it wasn't to rooty or rocky, it was mainly dirt or in some Regions, grass. When we got to the manning trail, we only had a little more to go. We stopped and played something like steal the bacon, but it was Ben's vs. Jerry's. There were different types of leaves and Fern would call a number, and if it was yours, you would battle the other team's player that had the same number. Whoever got it across their teams border first won.

      We kept trekking to the Region of the AMC lodge and when we finally got there, we went inside and it was free time. Mrs. Roberts, Katelyn, Noah and I tried to finish monopoly, but Katelyn, Noah and I all quit and had friends do it for us, while Mrs. Roberts kept playing, we did not finish the game. After free time we had dinner. We had lasagna, garlic bread and salad and we had brownies for dessert. We got ready to go outside for the fire that my group was building. The fire was really nice Fern and Gretchen sang "Riptide" and all of the groups did different skits. Then Gretchen told us a story about a purple tiger. When we all went in, I went and took a shower and then went downstairs to listen Mr. Woolner tell us a story about his family. It was kinda strange, but it was still cool. We all went to bed that night, very tired.

Image by Emily F. is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.