Mr. Zips and I got up early as usual on Day 1 of vacation. Off we scoot to Jordan Lake in Acadia National Park for a "moderate" hike around the lake. 3.5 miles - a couple of hours - no big deal, eh?
And to start, it was a perfect hike. Cool and foggy, which meant Mr. Zips was in photog heaven. (In addition to cat paws, animal tongues, and mushrooms, Mr. Zips is a sucker for pictures of mist.)
Then we decided to take the "South Bubble Mountain Summit Trail."
Here's what South Bubble Mountain looks like in the early morning mist.
The hike up was challenging but none too scary. A glacier deposited thousands of rocks which provided a natural staircase for the mile-long vertical climb. And we were rewarded with quite the view.
What they don't tell you in the guidebooks is that the other side of the South Bubble Mountain Summit Trail is down a sheer cliff face. Straight down. Overlooking 600 feet of FALLING. See the rocky mountaintop hiding behind the trees in the rightside of the picture below? Yea, that's where we almost died.
I started panicking even before we began our descent. A short way down and we passed a rugged looking family backtracking because the mom had gotten too scared to make it any further. "Coming up was bad enough," they told us, "I'd hate to have to go down this one."
Right.
So, we in fact turned around and shamefacedly made our way down the same way we came up the mountain. It wasn't as adventurous, but then again, we're not dead now.
All in all, Mr. Zips took 384 photos of our amazing time in Maine. You can see more of them by going to his amazing Flickr site.
Does my heart good to look through them as I prepare for another 10 plus hour day in the office. Maybe we should have stayed on that trail....
