The Second Day in the Wilderness
By Sierra S.
Green Group
October Fifth
Theme: Regions
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On the second day at Cardigan, we hiked over Firescrew to Cardigan. My group, Evan, Jake, Bryce, Gabe, Tayla, and Cami, started out on the Lower Manning Trail. On the way up, we played Camouflage, a game where you tried to blend in and avoid being seen by the seeker. I was wearing a bright orange shirt, so I was found first. We hiked through the tree zones, or regions. Jen, the group leader told us about the different tree zones. Near the base was the Hardwood zone, where we sketched a beech tree. In the Boreal zone, at 2045 feet, we stopped to snack and saw a giant mushroom. It took us a long time to get to the summit. Firescrew had many false summits. We stopped at least five times, thinking it was the summit, then spotting another higher rocky outcrop. On one false summit, we stopped to sketch American Mountain Ash, a plant whose berries were poisonous until after the first frost. Once we finally reached the real summit of Firescrew, Jake convinced everyone that we should try and yell at Cardigan. So we did, and they responded. Even though it was already past noon when we got to the summit of Firescrew, we decided to eat lunch at Cardigan, less than a mile away. Evan wanted to go see Grotto's cave, but when we reached Cardigan, we realized we had missed it somewhere along the trail.
We could see for miles from the bare rock summit. On top of Cardigan was a fire tower, built to observe the surrounding area to look for fire. Gina's dad worked with the people who manned the fire towers or dispatched people to fight the ires, and he gave people a tour of the tower. I went up with Cami, Tayla, and her dad. Mr. Simpkins explained the Osborne Fire Spotter, or something like that, which was a specially created device that could find where the fire was. By using the devices in the other towers on the summits, they could triangulate the location and pinpoint the fire. Down below the tower was the Warden's cabin, where the fire watch people would stay during the dry season. We got back to the lodge at around five. On the way back down, we saw a tree almost completely covered by white mushrooms. The hike was 5.6 miles and took us 8 hours to hike it. Dinner, which was tacos, was an hour later.
That night we spent around the outdoor fire, making up skits and playing games.
There were several regions that we went through as we hiked. The towns of Alexandria and Orange were regions that we hiked in. We also hiked through tree regions, the hardwood zone, the boreal zone, and the alpine zone, areas where different types of trees grew. Another region was the Cardigan Mountain State Forest, where the lodge was and where we hiked. We also hiked in the AMC Cardigan Reservation.
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American Mountain Ash is a plant whose berries are filled with a harmful arsenic, but after the first frost, the arsenic disappears and birds flock to its branches.
A pine tree on a rocky spot on Firescrew.
Beech trees are hardwoods that grow in the Hardwood Zone.
A decaying tree covered in white, unidentifiable fungi.
