The Precipice and Beehive- Acadia

I spent the last week up in Acadia, and luckily just before we went up there, they re-opened the precipice trail. It had been closed for the preregrine falcons, who nest up on the cliffs every year. I was up there w/ some relatives, and after some convincing, i got my cousin's husband and his father to come do the trail w/ me.

We parked over at sand beach and walked the 1.7 miles back up the loop road to the precipice parking lot. Then the hike was about a mile up and around the cliffs. It is a rather tough mile as you are climbing up boulders, iron rungs, and skirting a few cliffs here and there. After getting to the top of champlain, we hiked over to the bowl, which was about 1.6 miles i think, and then we hiked down the beehive. Make that climbed, not too much hiking there.

It was a fun days climb, and it was pretty darn hot that day. The heat and humidity made it very sweaty on the hands, and a little tricky holding onto the iron rungs. After the climbing was done, it was off to sand beach to swim and eat.

Here are the pics, they are a lot better than anything i could write about the climb and hike. http://eshare.hpphoto.com/en/home/welcome.asp?JobID=0c6c02c2-a9bb-4d6d-a465-4728a5eebf3e

Park loop road

The day before the precipice hike, Kyle, Pete, and I decided to bike the park loop road w/ our mt bikes. We parked at sand beach and headed out from there. The whole loop road was about 20 miles. We stopped at Jordan pond for lunch, and after having lunch we went around bubble rock, bubble pond, and then to the entrance of cadillac mt auto road.

Pete and I decided to climb to the top on our bikes, and also to have a little contest to see who could get to the top the fastest. It was very warm that day as well, into the mid 80's w/ high humidity. So we went up the mt, and it was a steady grade the whole way. It was 3.5 miles up to the top of the mt, and it was 1500+ feet at the top of Cadillac. I did the climb at about 7 mph, and just over 29 minutes, pete kicked my but and was a few minutes ahead of me at the top as i got there just about ready to keel over. I thought i flew up there, for being on a mt bike and climbing a mt, but he has got to be the most in shape 50+ year old i have ever met. Put me to shame.

The ride down the mt was great, we had 18 minutes of riding 20+ miles an hour on the way down and over to sand beach. All in all, it was a little over 27 miles for the whole loop.

here are some pics http://eshare.hpphoto.com/en/home/welcome.asp?JobID=f2b5d168-5f14-4bfb-a3cf-2e0a8cbae4ca

sargeant mt

on Thursday our friend kristine came up for the day to join us for some hiking. We decided to do Sargeant mt via the Giant Slide Trail. The trailhead starts off the side of rte 198, north of the hadlock ponds by a few miles. We were also joined by my cousin amanda, her husband kyle and his father pete.

The trail starts off pretty gently and then about a mile in it starts to climb up a riverbed/rockslide. This goes up for a little under a mile, but it is a very fun little scramble up some large rocks. Most of us took our time going up, but Pete, the oldest, but not the wisest, decided to start running up the trail. He said we would meet up w/ him higher on up.

So we got to the first intersection, and it went 3 different ways. Alas, there was no Pete waiting at the intersection. We went right and headed off towards Parkman mt. After a few minutes of hiking, we called him on the cell, and he complained about how we left him. We told him that we would catch up to him on the top of Sargeant. A few minutes later we reached the top of parkman and took a little break. I looked up the ridgeline and saw a figure running up the next ridge towards Gilmore peak. I decided that the only person crazy enough to be running up the trail would be Pete. So i yelled out his name and we got him to stop and wait on the peak while we traversed our way into the ravine and then up to Gilmore Peak. Once we got up to him, we saw a trail of blood flowing down his leg. Apparently he had wacked it on a rock while running.

From there it was only another mile or so to the top of Sargeant and some great views of the island. After some lunch of subway sandwhiches, we decided to descend the north ridge trail. Pete was in a hurry to get down, as noone had told him to pack his sandwhich and he was very hungry.

The hike was a nice 5.4 mile loop, and the book says 1852 vertical feet. A good little workout. Here are a few pics http://eshare.hpphoto.com/en/home/welcome.asp?JobID=61fcd380-32ff-47ac-adb5-564e74000329

Great report and pictures, King Tut! You've given me some good ideas for hikes next time I visit there. Thanks.

Nice report and pics! These two are on my list for Acadia this year!

^MtnMike^

Those two hikes are two of my fav's on the island. The other two that i recommend are the west face trail of cadillac, which artex did earlier, and the A Murray Young trail that goes in the gorge between dorr and cadillac. The gorge is a very scenic trail and you can hit up dorr and/or cadillac from there. If you do the west face trail, make sure you drink your coffee before you start climbing, it is a very difficult one handed climb.

also, nice bob barker avatar.