| Summary | None |
| Owner | Nadine Mueller-Dittmann |
| Creation Date | 2012-09-11 23:31:39 UTC-0400 |
| Description | Matthew Gilbertson, Emily TenCate, Kayla Meduna, Catherine Yun, Dmitry, James Logan, Yakov Berchenko-Kogan, Elliott Fray, Nadine Mueller-Dittmann
“I want to lead a hike that REQUIRES swimming!” Matthew had enthusiastically announced his latest hiking vision for Intro-Circus on Friday. Finally, Sunday was the day of truth: Cannon hike + Profile lake were “on the list”. We had brought trashbags for the lake crossing and were all a little tired (there was an unexpected but really funny bagpipe-intervention in the night at the cabin), but still looking forward to an adventurous hike. After a very efficient and fast cleaning of the cabin, perfectly coordinated by Michele, we started at 9 AM from Camelot to the parking lot at the Cannon Tramway. The weather was colder than the day before, but the sky was clear and it seemed to get a sunny day. Since our clothes & shoes hadn’t dried overnight, Matthew decided to hike in Crocs. Now, I can say for sure, MITOC people have shown me & hiking-approved the whole range of footgear that I considered impossible to hike in! Only I haven’t seen anyone hiking completely barefoot yet, but I guess I wouldn’t even be surprised anymore if that actually happens ;). Before reaching the actual top, we came to a rock platform close to the cliff. We all were curious to see Cannon from above and Elliott showed a way to hike a little closer and near the edge of the cliff. We even saw rock climber from up there. There we had the other perspective, since you usually only see the climbers from the road below. Elliott was in exploration mood and went further to the edge. After having lunch, we made it to the top of Cannon mountain at 1:30 PM and climbed the tower that was crowded with people, coming up with the cable car (who were pretty much freezing at the windy observation deck). For finishing the loop we spontaneously decided to extend the route for a short stop on Lonesome Lake, where we could practice our lake crossing skills. Kayla took the chance for shoe cleaning (after walking through the mud) by swimming in all her clothes. While drying, Matthew came up with an experiment to find out: how many (MIT) students does it need to catch 1 squirrel? Mh …, I don’t know the answer, but apparently 9 were not enough! I guess we were pretty close with the self made squirrel-catching-apparature out of a sleeping bag pouch, rope, some wood sticks and selected delicious granola crumbs. However it seemed like the squirrel had some fun with us and got entertained and fed quite well. Finally at about 6:45 PM we arrived at the most exciting point of the hike – profile lake, time for trashbag and lake crossing! We were almost not in the mood for swimming anymore (the sun was about to set and we were a little cold). Luckily Kayla took the responsibility for decision making by just walking, completely unimpressed by all us uncertain people and fully dressed + with her backpack (!) into the lake. So 5 of us got out our functional & waterproof gear for all occasions (trashbags) and got ready for swimming. With a rope at the trashbag that could be used as a belt around the hip, that worked out surprisingly well. And hey, I’m so glad we did that! It’s so much of a cool feeling to be in the water and then having this amazing scenery of mountains all around you, dipped into a slight sunset-red. I feel, since I still cannot decide whether I like more the water or the mountains, that seems to be the perfect situation of having & enjoying both. For people driving along the I-93 it must have been a funny view to the lake where the only saw: head – trashbag – head – trashbag – head - … There were 2 cars stopping and taking pictures even. On the water we had a short chat with a really surprised looking person fishing from a boat and we apologized for confusing his dinner. Our stuff in the bags stayed mostly dry and we took a quick look at the very nice memorial for the “old man of the mountain” that is getting finished right now (pretty recommendable, stopping there). There is the saying: “swimming makes you hungry”. I’m sure the employees of “the common man inn” could exactly experience that with us pitching into their free cheese and cracker like locusts. We all got good food and afterwards made it back to Boston. Ha, I haven’t participated in a Circus that had such bad weather and was so much fun, though! Thanks for all of you organizing it, especially Michele for all the great planning in advance and at the Circus itself! -Nadine |