Penobscot Mountain & Jordan Cliffs loop

I followed stone steps up the talus slope, led on by little rectangles of blue paint. The trail does not cut a swath, but seems a natural course through the talus. A pileated woodpecker cried out. The route onto Jordan Ridge takes you where the action is right away. From a ledge, I looked across at Pemetic Mountain. Wooden handrail and steep crib-work steps angle up the slope. Someone had worked hard to prepare the way. On a ledge, four plumes of goldenrod sprouted from lichen-covered rocks, an effect a gardener would strive for. I waited for a man and young girl to pass down, then climbed the last stretch to the ridge. Standing among the trees, I heard a bell in Eastern way tolling the rhythm of the swells. From the ridge the slope rises gradually over solid granite to Penobscot's summit.

Westward, over Cedar Swamp Mountain, the top of Mansell Mountain cut the horizon. Turning around, I saw high ground on Isle au Haut rise out of the fog. The granite knob south of the summit, which gives Penobscot its characteristic shape, loomed ahead. Like a ziggurat or temple built of stone blocks, it is the Angkor Wat of Maine. From the knob, I looked over to Cadillac where sunlight flashed on a line of cars on the mountain road.

Off for the Jordan Cliffs. Following the line of cairns toward the east (not north toward Sargent and its pond), I headed across the shelf above the cliffs, crossing rocky terrain with trees growing in soil collected in the shelter of the summit. The trail crosses two smoky dikes cutting through paler granite. Then a third. Coming out on the top of the cliffs, I looked over the length of Jordan Pond, silver in the south, dull pewter in the north, across to the Bubbles and Pemetic on the far side. At 7:05, I got to the upper valley of Deer Brook between Sargent and Penobscot. Left, the trail dropped to Jordan Pond, Right, pas a sloping rock wall, to Jordan Cliffs. CAUTION: TRAIL STEEP WITH EXPOSED CLIFFS AND FIXED IRON RUNGS. The moment of truth was near. I hung a right.