The Art of Hiking

 Today was our last day of Senior Project. Since we already completed all of our pages for the hike, all we had to do today was finishing touches. We printed out a table of contents and assigned page numbers. We also bound our book. For that, we used burlap string. We tied it through the holes in the sheet and then we had a complete book. I’m so excited to be done and get back on campus with everyone. Today we worked for 1 hour. That gives us a total of 57 hours for Senior Project. 

 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. 

Today we went to breakfast and worked in a cafe. We spent some time completing the pages for Smith Pond. We followed the template that we have been using and wrote up a lot of the page. We essentially finished most of the page today. Tomorrow we will print it out and do some finishing touches to the page. So far, everything is running super smoothly and we are right on track. We worked for 5 hours today. This gives us a total of 36.5 hours (we added wrong yesterday). 

 Today we decided to stay local. We headed to Smith Pond in Enfield, NH. Originally we were supposed to drive two hours to Mount Willard, but it didn’t work with our schedule. This hike was only a five minute drive from my house and it was pretty easy. It started out super flat, got gradually steeper, and then we finally reached the pond at the top. It was a super eventful day, and I would totally recommend this hike to beginner to moderate hikers. We spent a total of 6 hours hiking today. This makes our total senior project hours 32.5!!

      Overall this week went pretty well. We started off the week with a nice, moderate hike up Cardigan Mountain. Although it took longer than expected because the gate was closed, it was a good way to start the week. Then we had two days of bookwork, finishing the title page and the first page of our book. Then, Thursday, we drove pretty far to be able to hike in Franconia, New Hampshire. This hike was a lot longer miles-wise than we expected, but the view and exercise were super rewarding. Then we finished off the week with another two days of bookwork.      I think some things we are doing well are time management and staying focused. We have effectively followed our planned schedule perfectly so far and have stayed on track with hours. Whenever it is time to work we have been fully engaged or productive, whether at school or at home. This has allowed us to get the allotted hours this week, make it back to school in time for sports (even when hiking), and also allowed us to be on t

 Today was a pretty straightforward day. Since we got most of the page done yesterday we just had to do a few finishing touches today. We worked a little bit at home for an hour and then headed to school for sports. We added some color to our page, and some other small details. Then we started to prepare for Monday’s hike which we might have to change locations for due to driving conflicts. Originally the hike was Mount Willard, but due to the distance we did some planning to change it to Smith Pond in Enfield. Today we spent a total of 1 hour on book work. This gives our project a total of 25.5 hours. 

 Today we headed to campus for some book work fun. We started off my writing everything up about our hike in Franconia yesterday. Writing this up took a long time since there were so many small details we wanted to include. Then, we printed and glued the information into our book. Kelby also sketched the topo map out for the back of the page. We also decorated the page with some fun stickers and other things to make it look good. Tomorrow we just have some finishing touches. Today we worked for 5 hours. That brings our total Senior Project hours to 24.5

 Today we woke up super early for a big day in Franconia. We took the hour and a half drive by storm and ended up at the Hi Cannon Trail. This is probably one of our more challenging hikes with it taking us 6 hours to complete. The terrain was crazy and there was definitely some snow left still. We even had to climb up a ladder near the top of Cannon which was neat, but pretty scary. We ended with some pretty dirty sneakers, but the view from the ladder look out and the top of Cannon made it worth it. Tomorrow will be a very needed book work day because I’m sure we will be sore. We spent a total of 6 hours hiking today, for a total of 19.5 whole Senior Project hours. 

 Today we headed to the one and only Proctor Academy to grind out some work. We took all the supplies we got yesterday and set up camp in the library. Heidi provided us with some glue and scissors and we got to work. Today we completed our cover page and also our finished product of the first hike. We included our template on one side and then Kelby hand drew the topo map on the other side. It took us a total of 2.5 hours to complete and have finished products for both the pages. As of now, that means we have spent 13.5 hours on Senior Project. Tomorrow we set foot back out on the mountains and head to the Hi Cannon Trail in Franconia. It should be a rigid one, so wish us luck. 

 Today was the second day of senior project and since we hiked yesterday, today we started our book. Our plan is to make a trail map book of the mountains we hike. We picked up materials today to make that possible, such as twine, folders, paper, and other materials. Then we started typing up facts and an outline of things we noticed on our hike yesterday. This will make up one of the pages of our book, and we will have a different page for each mountain. We spent three hours in the morning, from 8-11 working on the outline and idea of what each page would look like. Then, we spent another two hours in the afternoon typing up the page, and nearly finishing it. The rest of the page will be completed tomorrow!! Overall, it was a relatively relaxing, brainstorming day. We spent a total of 5 hours today working on our book, for a total of 11 hours of work overall for Senior Project. 

Today, Lola, Kelby and I kicked off Senior Project by hiking Cardigan Mountain. We started hiking around 8 am from the Orange entrance. The trail was super muddy and the gate to the entrance was closed so we had to walk an extra 1/4 mile to get to the gate entrance. That being said, after a longer, muddy start, we made it to the top in about 2 hours, spent another two wandering around, taking notes of forks in the trails, etc. We even were able to go up into the fire tower and talk to the fire marshall’s for a little bit. They talked to us about hiking safety and fire safety, and then shortly after we climbed down the tower and headed back down. It was super windy at the top, and we struggled to make it down to the wooded area without blowing away. We made it back down in roughly another two hours around 2 pm, for a total of 6 working hours today. Overall, it was a great way to kick off the project.