A head-and-shoulders illustration of Victor. He is smiling and has medium-toned skin, dark brown hair down to the nape of his neck, and an orange shirt.

Summiting Mount Monadnock by Victor D. '27

camping trip!

Last weekend,  I went camping with my living community (Putz)!⁠01 2nd West, one of East Campus' 10 living communities

Overall, it was a really fun but chaotic experience, largely because of the rain that sort of derailed our plans. I hadn’t been camping since high school so it was really nice to be able to experience the great outdoors with my living community :D.

Saturday

We left in the afternoon, driving through Boston’s suburbs blossoming with fall colors and making pit-stops at a camera store in Malden to buy film, then Texas Roadhouse, and lastly a marsh ahead of the camp site.

a bus bound for malden next to a tree
a house behind some trees
marsh
people sitting at a table
texas roadhouse

Finally, we arrived at the site in New Hampshire. Putz frolicked in the forest to collect firewood and climb trees.  As twilight approached, we drove to Sunset Lake to watch the sundown and skip rocks. I looked from the tiny waves caressing the beach to the wooden cottages with gray, steep roofs lining the lake, their docks jutting out over the water. It was nice to take a moment out of the productivity-maxing of MIT and out of the rush of the city: To be somewhere so quiet and isolated, where our being there was our purpose. A place where our chatter, crunching sand under our footsteps, rustling leaves, and diving rocks (a plop, then a splash) dominated the soundscape. No wonder the Transcendentalists⁠02 Thoreau reference romanticized and retreated into New England’s forests for a respite; a cabin in a place like Sunset Pond, a pen, and a piece of paper could suffice.

a lake framed between two trees
the lake by our campsite
4 people stand at the edge of a lake
rock skipping at sunset lake!

Anyhow, we returned to the campsite and enjoyed a delicious spaghetti dinner cooked over campfire. After dinner, some of us went to a clearing to stargaze. In a similar way, the stars are as empowering and overwhelming as the lake. After watching the stars for a while, we started discussing space. I thought out loud about how these places are completely out of our reach. But my Course 8⁠03 Physics friend Peyton shared about telescopes: even if these places were forever beyond our reach, telescopes allow us to travel to distant exoplanets in a way, as we can still study their atmospheric composition and size for example.

stars in night sky
tinfoil burning
unsuccessful cooking attempt

Thanks to a lack of artificial light, our circadian rhythms were functioning properly: by 9:00 P.M, Putz was ready for bed. We all settled in our tents to sleep, but not before doing some absurdist improv⁠04 concerning a teenage son harboring an extraterrestrial from his family, ET reference from the comfort of our sleeping bags.

Sunday

In the morning, we headed out to hike. A Putzen⁠05 a resident of Putz told us that it was just 4-miles round-trip. Surely it couldn’t be that bad. Even as the storm clouds set in, we set off from the parking lot to summit Mount Monadnock (the forecast claimed it wouldn’t rain until the evening). At first, it was actually really refreshing strolling up under the canopy of autumn. Even scrambling and scuttling up the steep rock faces was fun.

a hiking sign that says white cross trail
trailhead
a group of people walks on a trail under autumn foliage
a forest
colorful yellow tree in the forest

But as we got higher, it grew colder and darker. We saw people descending, their hair wet from the increasingly heavy haze enveloping us, who assured us that the top was near. The summit was too close to turn back now, so we pressed on stubbornly by following the intermittent white paint on guide-rocks, unable to see exactly where we were headed. Even as the frigid, gushing wind compelled me to put on my second puffer jacket, I felt only more resolved to summit as I got on all 4s and ascended like a mountain goat. The wind almost knocked me off my feet several times, especially as we reached the peak where the air would rush behind us and try to push us up and over. At the summit, the view we were promised was not, though we were offered snacks by some other hikers who were sheltering with us behind a rock.

a haze in a forest with some autumn leaves
rocks in the forest
a haze hnaging over the forest
a pyramid pile of rocks under a gray haze
a tree with yellow leaves almost bare

After a long, wet day on the trail, we returned to the campsite to gather around the campfire one last time before leaving in the evening around 10:00 P.M. instead of our planned Monday morning. Many of us were soaked, tired, and perhaps had our fill of the outdoors.

Monday

I showered off the campfire scent and went to MIT Health urgent care, because I got sick (probably from getting rained on while descending the mountain). The weekend was exhausting but rewarding: I got a break from the world of PSETs, summited a mountain, and made some great memories.

Maybe next Putz camping we will return to Monadnock and be able to appreciate the view.

monadnock summit on a clear day :D

  1. 2nd West, one of East Campus' 10 living communities⁠ ↑
  2. Thoreau reference⁠ ↑
  3. Physics⁠ ↑
  4. concerning a teenage son harboring an extraterrestrial from his family, ET reference⁠ ↑
  5. a resident of Putz⁠ ↑