By Angelo.C

September 26 2022

Waking up in the Cardigan Lodge in the morning I felt refreshed from a good nights sleep in our cozy rooms. We heard Mr. Woolner telling us all, "Time to get up!" and we felt excited for the Cardigan hike planned for this day. Before we even got dressed, my friends and I went downstairs for a morning hot cocoa and a game of chess.

The room felt comfortable and looked warm with the sun coming in the window. Soon it was time to have a delicious and filling breakfast of eggs and bacon! We all made sure to drink a lot of water. After breakfast we got ready for the day by getting dressed in our hiking gear and packing our daypacks with snacks, first aid kit, rain gear, layers, lunch, and two bottles of water. We went down to the library filled with anticipation because we were going to find out if Erin thought we could summit the mountain and also make the full loop to Fire Screw. We all cheered when Erin let us know what loop we were doing. Before we knew it we left the lodge and started out on the Manning trail. We quickly ran into Mr. Woolner and Heidi's group but they were going an opposite direction. The start of our hike was beautiful. We crossed a river, climbed stairs made of rocks, and found a huge old Ash tree that we hugged to see how many "Helenas" it was around. We stopped to determine what zones we were in by observing the different trees and clues around us. It felt like we were hiking forever when we finally got to our first lookout point. We saw a wind turbine farm across the way on another ridge and could make out the summit of Cardigan. It was cool to think that we would be going up and then down along the ridge that looked so far away. After our snack of Cheez-Its, we pushed on to the final part of the climb up. As we got higher, we saw that the trees were getting shorter and soon there were no trees at all. In front of us we saw a huge incline of granite rock. The wind was blowing and the air was suddenly cold. We pushed on until finally, we got to the summit and saw the fire tower. We were shocked to be the first group to summit. We ate lunch, had Oreo's, and took a bunch of silly pictures. At the top we also looked down to see the lodge and how far we had hiked. Finally, even though I didn't want to, we left the summit. Just before though, we spotted another group and shouted to them. Before we knew it we met up with Mr. Woolner's and Heidi's group! Next up was summiting Fire Screw. Before this, we saw many cool cairns, stubby trees with blankets of lichen under them, and cool stripes of minerals in the bedrock. We saw another group after this. It was Max's group and I was really excited to see my great friend Tyler. We summited Firescrew and looked at the map to try and figure out what trail to take. It was cool to see the trees get taller as we went down and before we knew it, we were back at the lodge for free time! Dinner was build your own burgers and then we got to meet the animals of the lodge. We went outside for star gazing and then back inside for more stories with Mr. Woolner. It was a great way to end the night. As I lay in bed that night I thought how extraordinary it was to hike and explore with people I was starting to know well.

Regions - While climbing Cardigan we passed through many regions like The Northern Hardwood Zone, Borial Zone, and the Alpine Zone. The Northern Hardwood Zone is the lowest and has the most deciduous trees in it having deciduous trees being hardwood hence the name. The Borial Zone is the next zone up and has more softer wooded trees such as Balsam Fir, Sprouce, and some sparce Pines. The alpine Zone is the highest zone and has few trees at all because of the hight and having the landscape be mostly solid rock but when you see trees there allways short gnarly Borial trees never deciduous trees. You can also find licen and mossy stuff.