The Second Day of Cardigan

Sept 26

What Happened On Day 2

When breakfast was over, I grabbed my hiking gear, and headed outside to meet with my group. We decided to do Cardigan first, and then head over to Firescrew. On the way up Cardigan, we did the same routine- stop and sketch interesting plants and fungi, then keep walking. We had, by this point, come up with a point system, where if you spotted or identified a new plant, you got a certain number of points. The competition for points was more fierce than it should have been. I was at zero, so....We stopped for a snack break every once and awhile. (I was obsessed with the trail mix- or was it M+Ms in the trail mix? Either way I loved it). As we hiked farther up the mountain, we noticed that the trail got increasingly more steep, and that you had to use overgrown roots as footholds. We also noticed that the higher up we went, the more rocky the ground was. There were more trees with needles and fewer trees with leaves the more rocky the ground. In a way, this divided the mountain into two regions- either high or low elevation.

Finally, we got to a part of the mountain that was bare rock. I thought it was the summit, was about to scream,"Eureka!" when the hiking instructor informed us that we still had a long ways to climb, just over rock instead of dirt trail. Every five minutes or so, I would think that we made it to the top when we didn't. It was actually about half an hour more until we made it to the summit. When we finally got there, I was sooooooooo happy (and hungry). I sat down, and feasted upon a sandwich and a cookie. Then, I stomped around the mountain with my friends, pretending that I ruled the world. I also went onto a lump of rock that made it the highest point of the mountain (by a few feet). I looked out onto the valley below, put my arms out, and let the wind blow through my hair. I thought about how beautiful and peaceful everything was, about how exhilarating it is to climb a mountain. My moment was ruined, however, when my hiking guide called out, saying that we were going to sit down, and listen to a story. I sat with Sophie and Izzy, two people in my group, on the very edge of the mountain. There was a little ledge below, (which technically could catch you) but after that, the most you could see was the tips of trees. Anyways, we dangled our legs over the edge of Cardigan, and pretended that we were listening to an educational story, (that I think was about forest colonization or something) when really, we were watching a little sparrow jumping around on the ledge.

Soon, it was time to leave Cardigan and head into the region of Firescrew, the next mountain over. We climbed down the steep rock, (in my case crab walked), and followed the trail markings until we got down into the valley between Cardigan and Firescrew. Then, we began to hike Firescrew, which I swear took, like, five minutes. We observed the alpine bog at the peak of Firescrew for a while, before heading back down again. By now, we were half running down the trail, and I spectacularly tripped over a root, sending my stuff tumbling into the woods. This wasn't the first time I'd fallen on the trip. On the first day, I tripped over my own shoelace....moving on, when we finally got back to the lodge, there was still some time before break. So, we had to play a game where we have a partner, and we are blindfolded and brought to a tree. We get to feel the tree and try to identify it. Then we are brought away from the tree and unblindfolded, and we have to try to guess what tree it was. I guessed right on the first try, but poor Sophie's partner did a thousand things to trick her. He not only made her spin around twelve times once she was brought away from her tree, he also said, "oh, look out, there's a wire," when there wasn't one, so she was looking for a wire that wasn't there.

During break, I did the same kind of things as the break the day before, (running around, playing cards) except this time I helped carry wood down to the firepit. A little while after break, it was time for dinner. It was a delicious meal of bacon and mustard chicken with vegetables and rice. After dinner, we had a dessert of spice cake. Everything was so so so good. We then went back up to our rooms for a while, before it was time to come back downstairs for the campfire. I sat on the wooden logs lining the area that the fire was in. I could feel it burning against my face-I loved the feeling. I sat next to another one of my friends, the same one that I pulled off the windowsill. We sang songs by the campfire, and got tricked a couple of times. (I used one of the tricks on my siblings). I liked the campfire a lot. Soon, we went inside, and hung around in our rooms for a while before coming back downstairs to listen to a story. Both of the stories were in some way connected to Mr. Woolner. One of them was written by one of his uncles. It was about birds. The second story was not written down on paper- it was about the day after the death of another one of Mr. Woolner's uncles. After listening to the stories, we went back upstairs and got ready for bed. Then, when it was lights out, everybody in my room fell asleep almost instantly.