Cardigan Mountain, Day 3

Day Three at Cardigan

Though our final day at Cardigan Mountain may not have had the greatest weather, it was still a good way to wrap up our three days outdoors. We started by routinely boarding the bus and riding to the Lodge, and broke up into our smaller groups at the field before hiking to the campground. I finally decided at that time that it was a good time to change into my rain pants due to the pouring rain. At the campground, we learned how to use a compass and set a bearing, and used these skills to do the ‘Mystery of the Trees’ scavenger hunt. We eventually made it to the rusty old car atop one of the ski trails, and had a soaking wet mid-morning snack before heading down the fairly steep, grassy trail in the rain. After reaching the lodge, we then went to the man-made pond. On the grassy area surrounding it we played multiple hula hoop group games as well as a blindfolded search-and-find team group game. This resulted in a hula hoop getting into the pond, which was eventually retrieved. We had lunch at one of the pond-side picnic tables, and then embarked on the low-difficulty one mile nature loop. Halfway through we stopped to dig up cucumber of the woods plants and explore a rushing stream, which left me with soaking socks. On the way back to the lodge we slided on the wet boards of the nature trail, and then reached the lodge. I changed into my soccer uniform, boarded the bus, yelled goodbye to the AMC group leaders, and then rode back to the Middle High School.

I think that this day best represents human/environment interaction best out of the three days of our visit. Human/environment interaction is the detrimental or beneficial impact of humans on the surrounding environment, or the other way around. First, we were responsible for emissions created by the bus driving us to and from the AMC Lodge. Throughout the day we used man-made trails, which were cut out of the once-undisturbed surrounding landscape, and can lead to detrimental weathering and erosion. Both the old, rusty car and the aged ski lift mechanism that can be found where we had our snack were placed in their current location by humans, and the ski trails in close proximity were cut by humans. The pond near the AMC Lodge was dug and filled by people, the AMC Lodge itself was built by people, and the surrounding land and solar field being cleared is a result of human/environment interaction. All of these examples clearly dictate the environment of Cardigan Mountain being altered by the presence of humans.