Cadillac Mountain Hike

Today we took our first day-long hike in Acadia National Park, and, fittingly enough, we decided to make it a traverse including the summit of Cadillac Mountain, the highest in the park, but also the highest coastal mountain on the Eastern seacoast.  Having said that, the summit is only 1530 feet above sea level, so this is not one of the highest mountains we've climbed by any stretch.  However, it was quite warm today (a high of 84F), and the sun was unrelenting.  Further, almost the entire hike was on flat, granite stone face, which reflected back the heat.  It took more out of us than we expected.

We decided to approach Cadillac's summit from the north on the Cadillac North Ridge Trail.  The shuttle bus let us off about a mile from the trailhead, and we walked the road to get to it.  Then up to the summit, about another 2 miles or so, for first lunch.  We hiked the summit loop and then, from the summit, our hike took us 2 more miles southward on the Cadillac South Ridge Trail to have second lunch at Eagles Crag, an outcropping with a view to the East, and a supplemental hike around the loop.  Finally, our walk took us another 2+ miles down to Blackwoods Campground near the southern shore of Mount Desert Island.  We hopped a shuttle bus back to the Village Green in Bar Harbor, got our (now traditional) shared scoop of ice cream, and transferred to another shuttle bus back to the campground.

Here's a photo of the two of us at the trailhead:

Almost immediately, we got amazing views around the island.  This photo is of the five Porcupine Islands, with Bar Harbor visible along the shore of the island below the islands:

In the photo above, you can get a sense for the rocky, alpine, almost desert-like environment on the mountain where we hiked.

While there had been many cars parked at the trailhead, suggesting lots of people on the trail, we only ran into perhaps half a dozen people as we climbed.  Of course, once we summited, it seemed the entire population of North America - and their vehicles - were up top.  We swam our way through the waves of humanity to look at the views, and then found a quiet picnic table up behind the snack stand to eat our trail lunch.  Kathy snapped a quick candid photo of the two of us finishing our lunch.  Note the still-red faces despite our having had 20 minutes to cool down.  Most of it was from the heat, although Kathy thought she got a little sunburn as well.

We did a quick cruise around the summit loop to see the views, but, really, we mostly navigated other tourists.  Having satisfied our curiosity on that score, we headed down the Cadillac South Ridge Trail.

Where the first two miles were constantly up, the remainder of the hike was constantly down.  Some sections were steeper than others.  Here's one point where the reach from top of the granite to the next level was so high that an iron step rung was added.  In this photo, David is demonstrating the proper technique for descending such ladder rungs:

The hike down was interesting for its sequence of perhaps five points or plateaus, each at a progressively lower level, but with magnificent views at the point.  One of the points had a huge cairn of rocks, and Kathy paused by it.  If you look carefully past Kathy between her and the large cairn, you'll see a couple examples of the unique "Bates" style cairns that are used to mark trails in the rocky portions of Acadia National Park:

About halfway down to Eagles Crag, we passed an interesting little pond called the "Featherbed," pictured below with the ocean to the South in the background.  A primitive wooden bench had been built next to the shore of the pond, and we relaxed there as several groups of French Canadians, obviously staying at the campground below, passed on their way back down from the summit to the campground.

On a later point, we passed a small pool which has its own unique micro-eco-system.  From the look of the plants in the pool, it appears that it may have water most of the time.

We stopped for lunch in the shade at Eagles Crag, and were treated to some fabulous views of Gorham Mountain and Halfway Mountain to the East.

As we descended the last 2 miles from Eagles Crag, the entire environment changes.  Instead of open rock face and alpine or desert-like flora, we were submerged in a damp forest environment, with soft, spongy soil.  We passed a major trail renovation project, where clearly entire sections were being completely reconstructed, including the construction of drainage beside the trail, large boulders to support the side of the trail, and deep troughs of rock and gravel overlaid with humus and dirt.

We made it to Blackwoods Campground just in time to catch a passing shuttle bus.  The bus trip back to Village Green in Bar Harbor was a treat because we passed parts of the island we hadn't seen before.