Beautiful Clear Night

I just got back from bringing Ross into his group. Ross is one of our student leaders and an EMT. His brother graduated from college this morning and of course Ross wanted to be there so he and I made a plan to bring him into his group tonight. Senior leaders are such an important part of the program, they help teach, mentor and lead our students much like proctors do in the dorm.

We were very fast up the Beaver Brook Trail tonight. This trail (part of the AT) is very steep as it ascends the north flank of Mt. Moosilauke. When I say steep, I mean steep! There are foot holds and grips cut into the stone in a couple of places - really lovely and fun. Here is the view from the trail looking north east to Lafayette, Liberty and Flume. These are peaks that other SophX groups will be crossing in the coming days.
As we got within about 1/4 mile of the group's camp site we found snow packed on the trail. Just as we were wondering how much further it was to camp we met Mr. Anderson and Winslow (and Mr. Anderson's dog Cutter) hiking down the trail to meet us!
Very cool to see them. We chatted about the hike a bit and then I passed Ross along to them and I headed back. I was back in the parking lot at 7:00pm, well ahead of the setting sun.

Ross and I talked about what lessons he was going to teach to the younger students and we agreed he would probably do a first aid lesson with his background in medicine. Very cool that he is out with his group with no problems.

Tomorrow the group plans to cross Moosilauke and continue south on the Appalacian Trail.