Cadillac Mountain
Park at the trailhead for the Cadillac Mountain South Ridge Trail on Route 3
near the entrance to Blackwoods Campground. This route takes you up and over
Cadillac by way of Eagles Crag, Dike Peak, and the Featherbed. The south
ridge trail rises 1,340 feet in 3.7 miles (which includes a side trip to the
crag), the north ridge trail descends 1,240 feet in 2.2 miles.
Only the first mile is through what I would call real woods - tall woods,
old woods, woods full of blowdowns and snags. Here were red spruce, balsam
fir, white pine, mountain maple, red maple, and yellow birch. Here I heard
crows, blue jays, hermit thrushes, and saw a yelow-rumped warbler and female
ruffed grouse. North of Eagles Crag, about a mile from Route 3, the
landscape became noticeably diminished. There were no more tall trees for
the rest of the hike. Scrubby gray birch and pitch pine took over,
surrounded by low shrubs. The terrain opened to the sky.
From where the crag loop rejoins it, the south ridge trail passes through
ledgy terrain with little soil to speak of all the way to the summit ridge.
The so-called Featherbed is an anomaly on the ridge, a wet-land setting off
the barren slope. The ridge dips from Dike Peak into a basin that, in
profile, looks like a bluefish bite in the back of a pogy. Dike Peak on the
south ridge trail is in a class by itself. You want dikes, here are dikes -
six-foot dikes, fifteen-foot dikes, dikes twenty-four feet wide! Here is a
chapter in Acadia's geological history writ large in bold type.
From the Featherbed, the south ridge trail rises by a short, steep stretch
up onto the western of two south ridges leading to Cadillac's summit.
Several spectacular vistas opened up, beginning with the view east from
Eagles Crag looking out on Gorham and Champlain mountains, the Beehive and
Huguenot Head across the valley of Otter Creek and Beaver Brook. High up the
ridge, Pemetic Mountain dominates the view to the west; then, near the
summit, Pemetic fades back and Sargent, Penobscot, and the Bubbles come into
view.
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Champlain Mountain
The Carrige Paths
Around Little Long Pond
Around Jordan Pond
Acadia Mountain loop
Around Mansell Mountain
Little Harbor Brook & Birch Spring Loop
Penobscot Mountain & Jordan Cliffs
Western Mountain Loop
Champlain Mountain Loop
Norumbega Mountain Loop
Around Dorr Mountain
Pemetic Mountain Loop
Beech Mountain
Cadillac Mountain
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