NUHOC

This past weekend was the “NUcomers” trip for the Northeastern University Husky Outdoor Club (NUHOC, incase you didn’t make the connection).  We left Friday night and began our 3 and a half hour drive up to New Hampshire to the lodge for the long Columbus Day weekend.

Friday began as usual with my 8 A.M. Interpreting The Day’s News Class.  However instead of returning to IV* after class for a breakfast of waffles followed by a nap, I headed off to the library to finish my homework so I could be footloose and fancy free over the weekend.  Two lab reports, one analytical essay, and one “Smartworks**” assignment later, I emerged at about 5 P.M., thoroughly brainwashed and ready to escape into the wilderness for a good three days.

With about an hour till departure, I called home to check in and began to pack.  All was well until I had to pick a water bottle to take along. 

As most of you know, I have had the same “life is good” pink water bottle for the last 3 years (see above).  It was a gift from Valerie for my 16^th birthday, and served me well through various sports seasons, hikes, and just life in general.  However, it has now developed perpetual smell that is unrelenting no matter how many times I wash it.  Though sad to see it’s service come to an end, I have now officially retired my water bottle to a shelf, only to be used to hold memories from now on.  So now that my epitaph for my water bottle is complete, I will now move on to more exciting matters.  Namely, a new water bottle! 

This is the NUHOC water bottle, and yes, you are reading that right, it really does say “We do it in the woods.”

Packing complete, commence driving, skip the details they really aren’t that interesting anyway.  Arrive at camp, set up tent, wander around a little, SLEEP***!  And it is now Saturday morning.

After being awoken by a bugle fanfare, I rolled out of my cocoon of warmth and begrudgingly stepped out into the frigid air****.  Breakfast, pack a lunch, and sign up for a trip.  I chose Shilba-Mariah (or something that sounded something like that), a 14-mile hike right out of the lodge.  Unfortunately, between having a leader who had never hiked this before, a map no one knew how to read (we didn’t know where we started from), and 11 college students each with a different opinion, we really stood no chance in complete success.  So after wandering for over an hour in the wrong direction, we finally turned around and found the correct way up, which turned the episode into about a 17 miler.

View from the log graveyard where we turned around to go find the right trail

The top revealed a beautiful view of the White Mountains, accompanied with winds that could blow you over.  I solved this problem by nesting myself in a divot of bushes and hunkering down for lunch, the rest of the group soon followed.

The group at the top -- about to be blown off the mountain by the wind

View from the top

The remainder of the day was spent by the fire talking and playing games with fellow NUHOCers.  Dinner however proved to be quite an affair.  The cooking crew had been working for hours to create two ENORMOUS***** pots of chili when we heard a loud crash, the sound of glass breaking.  Assuming it was a bottle of some sort or a cup maybe, nobody paid much attention.  Until the NUHOC president gathered everyone’s attention and informed us that there had been an accident rendering the chili inedible and that pasta was being prepared and pizza was on the way.  Apparently one of the propane lamps in the kitchen that has been there since the lodge was built (about 40 years ago) was bumped and fell, landing on the head of the chili stirrer and shattering in and around the chili pots.  Everything turned out all right in the end, there were just a lot of very hungry college students for about an hour longer.

Sunday was a more relaxed day.  Morning routine repeated, with a different/easier assortment of hikes/outings to choose from.  I chose to go to Mt. Willard, what I would describe as a New Hampshire version of the Butte – if you can find it.  We eventually did make it there, just with an extra 40 minutes or so of driving in the wrong direction first.  The summit yielded a remarkable view of the valley below considering how short the hike was, but we all had a good time.  From there we went apple picking******.  The day ended like the first, except with no chili incident, and a night with “American Pie” and other songs around the campfire.  Yes, life is good.

Top of Mt. Willard

One last anecdote from the trip: shirts.  They ordered specific men’s and women’s shirts this year, which was a problem if you were a women and ordered a small thinking it was men’s.  As a result, they had way too many women’s small shirts, and people who ordered that size took a larger sized instead, so when I finally got my shirt, even though I ordered a medium, small was all that was left.  Here is my skintight belly shirt.

Yes, there are moose with laser beams coming out of their eyes... Don't ask me what the green stuff is.

And finally, Monday morning we packed up and headed home.  Other than getting caught in “return-home-from-Columbus-day-weekend-traffic” it was pretty much non eventful, though the trip back took about twice as long as it should have.  And after showering, laundry, and a reunion with friends, I sat down to write this, because I finished all my homework on Friday.  And now that it is nearly 10 o’clock, and I am very tired, I am going to bed. 

Good night everyone, and God bless.

~Emily

*International Village, my dorm for those of you who don’t know.

**An idiotic, frustrating online homework submission site that may as well be called “Dumbworks” for what it’s worth.  Not to mention the fact that I have to pay $30 a semester to subscribe to it simply so I can pass Chemistry.  Needless to say, I’m kind of irked.

***You may not think it gets that cold here, but let me tell you, it was quite a cold night.  Thank goodness for lots of layers, a mummy bag, and body heat.

****I really like this sentence.

*****Seriously, these things were huge.   I have never seen so large a pot in my entire life.

******We were going to go to Ripley Falls, which I was very eager to see, however apples triumphed.