Beautiful Spring Hike in Acadia National Park

I  haven't hiked lately with mud and slushy snow being the norm.  Usually the first mountainous area in Maine to be free of snow and mud is Acadia National Park.  With a clear day forecasted I headed down to Acadia with the J Man.

We planned roughly 9 mile loop that covered Dorr, Cadillac, and Pemetic Mountains.  We started first climbing up Dorr Mountain, the third highest Peak in the park.  From Dorr, we headed over to Cadillac Mountain, the highest peak in the park passing through a gorge between the peaks.  From the summit of Cadillac we descended steeply to Bubbles Pond on the West Face trail.  In my opinion the West Face trail is one of the hardest trails in Acadia without ladders.  It is steep and ledgy and tends to be wet which makes for challenging footing.  From Bubbles Pond we climbed to the summit of Pemetic Mountain,  Acadia's fourth highest summit.  Pemetic is a beautiful summit with a long exposed ridge with dramatic mountain and ocean views.  It is one of the nicer hikes in Acadia in my opinion.

The trail loses most of its elevation descending from Pemetic.  We then climbed steeply up rough, rocky trail on the Pond and Cannon Brook Trails to the south ridge of Cadillac Mountain reaching a small pond called the Featherbed.  We had lunch at the Featherbed listening to a chorus of frogs.  Most of the trip is downhill from the Featherbed following Cannon Brook.  Cannon Brook flows steeply down the mountain and has several small scenic waterfalls along its length.

The trails were wet but not muddy.  Early in the morning there was a few patches of ice on the rocks but they melted quickly.  Only a few sheltered areas at higher elevations had snow remaining.  I don't think we had to walk over more than a few feet of snow along the trails however.  Although chilly, temps only reaching the upper 40s with gusty summit winds, the day was gorgeous with endless visibility.  It was good to hike on snow free ground for the first time since early November.  For the first six miles we only saw two people.  At the end of the hike near the parking lot there was a few more people but we had the summits to ourselves.

For a map and more info go to http://www.backpacker.com/destinations/hikes/55560

Looking down The Gorge between Dorr and Cadillac toward the ocean

View over Bar Harbor and Porcupine Islands

Eagle Lake 

Cranberry Isles from Pemetic

Waterfall in Cannon Brook