The Art of Hiking

 Today was our second to last day of Senior Project. Since we added the Bulkhead hike in, we had an extra expected page of bookwork. Today we started the page for the Bulkhead. While Kelby worked on the Topo map, Lola wrote the trail description. I also wrote up the rest of the page. We completed the page of the Bulkhead. This means that tomorrow all we have to do is bind the book and add finishing touches. We worked for a total of 2.5 hours today. This gives us a total of 56 hours so far for Senior Project. 

      This week was really exciting for our group. We started off the week hiking Smith Pond in Enfield, NH. Initially, we were supposed to head to Mount Willard, but it did not fit into our day, so we had a change of plans. It was super simple but nice to stay close to home and have a relaxing hike. Then we went to Mount Kearsarge. It was such a fun hike, and we loved seeing campus from a different perspective. We had such a fun week of hiking, that we even decided to add on the Bulkhead on Friday. It was nice to wrap up the hiking part of Senior Project right at home.     Some things I think we did really well were staying on track this week and living in the moment. We really felt organized and focused both doing bookwork and hiking. Everything went according to plan, we made it to all the hikes without a problem and found our way to the top without any issues. We even had more hours than we were supposed to, which felt really nice and like we were making good use of our time. We al

 Today we started the final stretch of bookwork. We decided to head to the Library to be productive. Since we added the Bulkhead, we now have two more pages to complete instead of one. We started and finished Mount Kearsarge's page today. This involved typing up all the details from the hike, cutting them out, decorating the page, and completing the topo map. It was definitely a super productive day for us, and we ended up working longer than expected. It is absolutely crazy to think we are wrapping things up! We worked for 2.5 hours today. That gives us a total of 53.5 hours for Senior Project so far.

 Today Kelby, Lola, and I decided to change the plans and hike the Bulkhead. Originally, today we were supposed to do book work. We decided to switch things up and head over to Proctor for one last hike. It felt right to end our hiking journey right at home. We took our time up and enjoyed our last hike together. It felt really full circle walking past the cabin. We reflected on our time at Proctor at the top, staring off at the ski hill. Although this was a change of plans, it was super rewarding. We had a 6 hour day today, leading to a total of 51 hours on Senior Project. 

 Today we headed over to Mount Kearsarge. We decided to do the 3 mile loop so that we would make it back to sports practice. It was literally the perfect temperature and weather for a hiking day and was not too windy at the top. Additionally we talked with the fire marshall at the top. He let us hop into the fire tower and he showed us how he tries to track fires. Also, he even thought he saw something off in the distance and we got to watch him communicate with other fire towers. It was really cool to see him in live action and we learned more about fire safety and the effects of global warming on the wildfires. We spent a total of 6 hours on our hike today. That gives us a total of 45 hours for Senior Project. 

 Today we headed to campus to get some bookwork done. I had an early start at Faculty Meeting, so Lola and Kelby started off by finishing the trail description while I was there. Then we met up and finished the page we started yesterday. We glued it all together, added details, decorations, and other small things. Then, we decided to add page numbers and a table of contents to the book, so we started working on that. We are finished with our Smith Pond page and even did a little extra work today. We are definitely excited to hike Kearsarge tomorrow and even decided to add the Bulkhead to our schedule (and our book). We spent 2.5 hours working today. This gives our project a total of 39 hours.