Puffins, Lobster, & a Near-Death Experience {Part 3: Days 6-8}

Finishing the trip with days 6-8:

[Day 6] : July 9 – We decided to go see Thunder Hole and climb Cadillac Mountain (both in Acadia National Park). We first ate breakfast at Jeannie’s Great Maine Breakfast. (The food is DELICIOUS! and there’s lots of it!). After breakfast, we boarded one of the Island Explorer buses and headed to Thunder Hole. Thunder Hole gets its name because, when the tide is high and the waves crash into the rocks, it makes a loud thundering noise.

bottom left: my Mom is sitting on the edge of the rocks

After Thunder Hole, we went to the North Ridge trailhead and started the ascent to the summit of Cadillac Mountain. Ascending via the North Ridge trail is a fairly easy “walk” along/up large slabs of granite. It is a 2.2-mile hike with beautiful views of Bar Harbor and the Porcupine Islands.

Easy!

Porcupine Islands from Cadillac Mountain

Once at the top, first, there was a sense of victory that we’ve just ascended a mountain, and, second, a sigh of relief that we could now rest and refill water bottles and just catch our breath. There is parking and a gift shop (with bathrooms and a bottle refill station).

There are several ways to descend Cadillac Mountain. Some people go back down North Ridge trail and others take South Ridge trail. We decided to take the South Ridge trail. Somewhere along the trail, we took a “wrong turn” and ended up on the West Face trail. HOLY CRAP! It was the hardest (or should be the hardest) trail [check out some reviews on Google]. It starts out easy by walking on large slabs of granite (like the North Ridge trail) but soon turns into a 1-mile descent on a class 3 hiking trail. [side note: a class 3 hiking trail means: “scrambling or un-roped climbing. You must use your hands most of the time to hold the terrain or find your route. This may be caused by a combination of steepness and extreme terrain (large rocks or steep snow).“] Go here to follow the West Face trail. (It’s kinda like Street View, but on a mountain ha!) There are blue marks along the route to help stay on track but there were several times where the hikes were on nearly vertical “walls” of granite. At one particular place, I had to “slide” (not sure if that is the best word for it) across the vertical slab by holding on with the tips of my fingers and the tips of my toes (well…the rubber tips of my tennis shoes). This is the point where I felt like I had a near-death experience. Now, I’m the person that HATES being on a ladder. I’m not sure that it is a fear of heights because I can be in a plane, zip-line, be on top of a mountain, etc. but something about hanging off the side of a mountain makes my knees weak (not a good thing when you are trying to get off the side of the mountain!). I must add, there was a huge drop-off so one wrong step would have surely resulted in a very bad situation. I was literally wimpering as I slid across the rock. I’m still not sure how my Mom got across (in a safer manner than me) but at least she was there to encourage me and keep me calm. [Funny story: when I was close to her, she held out her hand to grab a hold of me and I stuck my foot out for her to grab. I think I must have felt safer putting my foot out/up than I did letting go with my fingers HA!]

see the arrow? That’s the tiny groove for my toes. The one for my fingers is above it and much smaller

[The above picture is deceiving. The right side of the screenshot looks like it is passible but it wasn’t when we were there. The only way across is to the left of the tree]

There was A LOT of times during the descent where we just sat down and slid down the slabs.

result of sliding down granite LOL

It didnt help that we were already tired but once we were on the trail, and that far into it, we had to keep going. The end of the trail came out at Bubble Pond and there was a clear path but, after a death-defying descent, I wasn’t thinking straight so as soon as saw the main road, I was determined that I was going to that road. I made a beeline for the road. I didn’t even care if I had to cross a ditch or creek (thankfully, it was just a small climb up the side of the road) but all common sense was gone due to exhaustion. I think I cried with relief…and then we laughed from delirium. By the time we got off the side of the mountain, most of the Island Explorer buses had stopped running/stopping at Bubble Pond. I did call and they said one would be out later (honestly I didn’t care since I was off of the mountain and didn’t have to walk all the way to town). The bus driver normally would have made the entire route/loop and came back through but since we had called, and they had contacted him, he stopped to pick us up before making the loop. Maybe they felt sorry for us:)

We rode the entire route, which was pretty long at this time of day, but was thankful to be alive and glad to give our legs/feet/everything a rest. Once we got back to the Village Green, my mom was so tired that she just needed to go back to the room (remember, we were walking. I think the bus that passed our hotel was not close to being back so we would have had to wait a long time). Since it was our last night in Bar Harbor, I really REALLY wanted food from Stewman’s so while my mom walked home, I walked all the way to Stewman’s, ordered the food, and waited for it to be ready…and walked home alone in the dark LOL.

[Day 7] : July 10 – We got up early, turned in our key, and headed out back toward Boston. It was uneventful until we got back into Boston. We had GPS telling us how to get to our hotel but there are tunnels EVERYWHERE and just as the GPS was about to tell us where to exit…in the tunnel…service went out and we had no idea where to go. These tunnels are full of traffic too! I don’t know how, other than the grace of God, and maybe “all roads lead to Rome”, we ended up at our hotel. Our hotel was beside the airport (convenient!) on one side and Boston Harbor on the other. When we checked in, they asked if we wanted to be upgraded to a Harbor view room. Best decision ever!!!

By the time we checked in and took our luggage to the room, we were hungry! We ate at Harborside Grill & Patio (in the hotel). We ate on the patio, which overlooks Boston Harbor. The food was delicious and the view was gorgeous.