My Eventfull Adventurous Time at Cardigan

October 2-4 2019

by, Cody C.

Yellow Group, D2B2

The LOCATION of the AMC lodge is sandwiched in between two small towns known as Alexandria and Orange. Alexandria neighbors Bristol as well. A quarter of the Cardigan Mountain State Forest is in Alexandria and the rest in Orange. As a matter of fact the firetower on top of Cardigan itself is on the border between the 2. Absolute location is 43.6706° N, 71.9160° W.

Cardigan is a prominent bare-rock summit in the towns of Orange and Alexandria. A cool little fact about the towns surrounding the mountain is that when you hike to the summit you can see the little town of Orange below. Mount Cardigan State Forest is a state forest in New Hampshire that spans 5,655 acres and is an excellent area for hiking. It is home to 2 different summits such as Mount Cardigan and the slightly smaller Firescrew. Firescrew tops out at 3040ft when Cardigan summits height is 3,156ft. A mountain road leads to trails on the west slope of Mount Cardigan as well as a trail to the summit. There is an AMC lodge located at the bottom of the Mount Cardigan trail. You can stay there like we did. They are .2 reviews away from 5 star. When we hiked our way to the summit you could see the town of Orange as it began to sleet. Mount Cardigan is north of Hopkinton and west of Newfound Lake. A little history fact of the summit of Cardigan is that there is a firetower at the top that was used to spot fires down below. It is not of use anymore.

Physical The base of the mountain is mostly granite. There are rivers flowing down the mountain most of the way up as well as smaller streams. It is a very similiar to Monadnock in many ways but very different in others. It is only 100ft shorter than Monadnock and it also not as steep. Cardigan has a lot more solid ground than Monadnock. You’re mostly climbing an uphill forest the whole until you make it high enough that the trees no longer have soil to grow on.

The Location of the AMC Lodge is between two towns called Alexandria and Orange. The Latitude of the AMC Lodge is N 43 38mins 59sec 9,6 Longitude of AMC Lodge is W 0’71mins 24sec 47’ 7 . It is West of Newfound Lake. Also it is North from where we live.

The eventfull trip lasted 2 nights, 3 days. First Day was on the 2nd of October on a Wednesday. The second day was on October 3rd on a Thursday and the last day was on Friday, October 4th. First day was the nature trail to Welton Falls, day 2 was the big hike to the summit and finally the final day we left at 1:50.