Day 1

Day 1- We started out from Carthage at about 9 am after Dr. Zorn didn't want to get up so early. Went through the states of Indiana, Ohio, and Pennsylvania until we ended up in Buffalo, New York at 8pm to stay at the famous and quaint Hospitality Inn. Along most of the way we were only a stone throws away from the prestigious Lake Erie. For me, it was interesting to see that much of the geography of the areas that we went through were much of the same as in Illinois or Wisconsin, as roads go anyways. Most of the learning was saved until the 2nd day but I did learn that my good friend Vinny Porretta can fall asleep almost anywhere.

Day 2- Left Buffalo at 6:30 am and started our 9 hour drive to the Appalachian Mountain Club Highland Center. Through our drive we cross the entire state of New York. We followed the historic rivers of the Mohawk, Hudson, and Connecticut along the way. After driving this expansive distance I realized how much of a feat it was to build and construct the Erie Canal, but also how necessary it was to connect the interior part of the country with a more direct route to the east coast. Along the way we read articles and excerpts from the suggested reading by Dr. Zorn and Dr. Arion. The majority of my reading concerned the topic of The Weeks Act and the men and organizations that went about promoting it. The Weeks Act was the chief document passed by Congress that allowed the government to buy many of the lands in New Hampshire and protect them through National Forest Preserves and National Parks. It was able to stop the destructive, irresponsible logging companies that were booming at the time from scoring the landscape with “slash” (the timber left over after logging) which started many wildfires that decimated the mountainsides.

Once we got here we met Dr. Arion and of course with his personality we were on the trail within 20 minutes. This was my first hiking experience ever and I was hooked. The landscape was gorgeous and the air was clean. As we came up to the summit of the 2,815 ft Mt. Willard it was like seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. I came out of the foliage and saw the view and knew that the trip was instantly worth it. We looked out over Crawford Notch “pass, gap, valley..same thing” onto the forest below and it was well worth the 19 hour drive already. We could actually see how the Wisconsin glaciers carved out the terrain with the easy sloping North sides and the steep rocky South sides. We oversaw the railroad that once brought lumber and other supplies up and down the pass. How they did it back then I have no clue other than just hard work, which is something I will learn about far more than I want to as we hike the surrounding landscapes and mountains in the coming days.