Off the Maine

A guidebook I have tells me that the large majority of Maine's visitors never go north of Elsworth, ME, and  they miss out on the beauty Maine has to offer.  JayMe and I are north of Ellsworth and I agree.  It's beautiful in the rural "towns", beautiful in the coastline, and has picturesque scenery everywhere else.

But after we broke camp, and before we would get north of Ellsworth, there was a start to the day, the guaranteed highlight of the day: hiking the "Precipice Cliff" trail.  Since I started really looking at visiting Acadia, the Precipice hike has been one of the critical must do items on my list.  And we did it.  We stood at the top of the cliff and yahoo-ed.  And then we hiked the rest of the trail and yahoo-ed again.  We were yahooers and for good reason.  We just covered a less than a mile trail, known as the Precipice trail.  The best hike I have ever done relegating to second place the hike I did with Beana in  Bryce Canyon.

The Precipice hike starts at the base of a cliff that you can look straight up to the top.  We'd have seen the top if it weren't for the cloud 2/3 of the way up.  The hike ends when you have climbed this cliff face and a little more.  The pictures I will eventually add will show the incredible hike, that is as long as my hand wasn't shaking too much when taking pictures.

When I was researching it, the descriptions said things like, "You will need to use railings and hand bars to lift yourself up the trail."  But until I actually was presented with my first obstacle, I couldn't picture what they meant.  On  the first obstacle, where there was a traffic jam, we watched as other hikers first took a very high step onto and bent iron bar that was drilled into the cliff.  With the foot in place and using the momentum of the lunge it took to get it there, you extend your arm and reach for another iron bar, where you can pause and reassess your ability to complete the rest of the hike.  Once you have decided to move forward, to complete the obstacle, you have to put your right forearm on top of the landing, and start to move your left foot to the handhold bar just as you remove your left hand from it.  Then it is simply a matter of getting that left arm up to the landing and heaving yourself over without tipping backward to a small 10 foot plunge.  After JayMe and I completed this, and felt the small surges of  exhilaration and adrenaline, and perhaps even machismo, we had to go to the top.

As the hike continued, we would skirt around on narrow trails, switchback a time or two, and then come to another obstacle.  There were about 15 or so obstacles (made up of about 100 rungs, railing, ladders, hand holds, etc) on the trail and none were configured alike.  Some were as simple as climbing a ladder, while others were as difficult and scary as lying at a 45 degree incline with your feet resting on a small crevice in the rock and working your way 20 feet further along with a probable plunge to the death if you happen to misstep.  I am pretty amazed that they let people do things like this without signing a waiver of responsibility or something.  It's sort of like when at the Grand Canyon, you are able to wonder around on the rocks to your delight, but there are no guard rails to keep you from plunging 7000 feet.  Or at Acadia where just this week, and while I was at the park, a woman from New Jersey rode her bike off a cliff...she lived.

And it was wonderful.  Even with no wildlife (save falcons), and no waterfalls, and no unexpected stunning views, this is now the best hike I have ever done and recommend it to anyone not too afraid of heights looking for a huge, huge thrill.

After calming down at the top, we, like most all the other hikers, decided not to hike back down the cliff but rather take a much gentler stroll down the crest of the mountain leaving us just a mile hike back up the road to our car.  And that was the end of Acadia for me.  It's a great park that I hope to get a chance to explore again.

We headed north out of the park, past Elsworth, ME and our next destination was Lubec, where we hoped to stop for the night.  Lubec is the Easternmost point of the continental U.S. and thus is the first town in America to see the sunrise every day.  Unfortunately, all 3 hotels in town were full, and after 2 nights of camping a hotel was required, so we moved on and stayed the night in a roadside hotel just shy of Calais.  We're heading into the Maine North Woods tomorrow, and a good night's sleep is required.