Exile on Snow Street Part Three: Cadillac

Egg Rock Lighthouse as seen from Park Loop Road

29 Septembr 2024

The events in this post took place on August 26, 2024.

I've taken my bike on Park Loop Road and Cadillac Mountain ten times since 2016. Each time, I've thought about how much fun it would be if I could bring some Free Wheelers with me.

Today, that's what I'm doing. 

Heddy and Ginger stop by early for some coffee. I've brought beans, a grinder, and a press with me from home, so they know I have the good stuff. I finish getting ready for the ride after they leave to get ready for the ride.

Jeff texts that he, Lonnie, and Jackie are waiting in line for their e-bike rentals. I tell him there's no rush.

There's a fog alert banner over the day's forecast. It's supposed to dissipate by late morning.

When the e-bikers arrive at Party House, the group of seven -- Jeff, Lonnie, Jackie, Heddy, Ginger, Martin, and Glen -- meets me at Party House.

I give them the rundown of today's route. I haven't created a GPS course for them. They'll have to follow me.

I lead off down Snow Street, staying on the back roads past most of the Main Street sewer line construction. We still have to ride through a little bit of it.

Between the edge of town and Sieur de Monts is an uphill past Jackson Laboratories. I guess they're not autoclaving mouse food at the moment. I've smelled it before as I've passed by. 

We're getting a little spread out. I signal for the turn into Sieur de Monts well before we get there. I follow the curve around to Park Loop Road and stop. We're missing Martin, Glen, and Ginger. We wait. We wait a little longer. Did they miss the turn?

Of course we have no cell signal here.

We send Jeff back to the intersection and we wait. And wait. Eventually, Jeff returns. They missed the intersection and are a few miles down the road. We wait some more.

"I told everyone where we were turning," I whine.

"You said a lot at the beginning," Heddy tells me. True. Bad ride leader.

Once we're all together again, we start up the first hill. "This is the most annoying one of the day," I explain, "and maybe the steepest."

We collect ourselves at the top. I instruct everyone to meet at the next turnout. There's a good view.

For years, I've been taking pictures of the Egg Rock lighthouse from the shores of Mount Desert Island, from Schooner Head during the day, and from the Shore Path at sunrise. Today's view is now my favorite, with the island bathed in fog.

Maybe the fog is starting to lift?

There's a bathroom at the Thunder Hole parking lot. We pull in. Thunder Hole is invisible behind a bank of dense fog.

Farther on, we get to Otter Cliffs, where Park Loop Road inexplicably, briefly, bifurcates. I stop in the middle of the high road so that nobody gets confused.

Jeff hams it up.

Next stop, the Fabbri Memorial at Otter Creek.

And on down around the bend to the Otter Creek inlet causeway, still under construction that started in the spring. There's culvert work going on.

On the other side, Cadillac Mountain. Heddy wisely points out that we can see the mountain, which means it's not foggy up there.

Park Loop Road follows the other side of the inlet, then turns north, into the woods, away from the water. 

Every few miles, I look for a place to stop to collect the group. I find one near a carriage road bridge, at the top of a hill. The e-bikes blaze on past.

I tell Heddy, "I once saw an e-tandem here. They carried their bike up this path to the bridge."

"It's pretty steep, but they hauled that thing up."

On the bridge, several people are talking. Heddy says, "I know that voice." She shouts, "ELAINE!" A pink jersey emerges from the side of the bridge. "ELAINE!"

She looks down, laughing. "What are the odds?"  

"What bridge is this?" I ask. I should know, but I don't. 

"Day Mountain."

"Are you going up? The surface kinda sucks."

"We're not going up."

They take pictues of us and we take pictures of them. This is kinda great. I'm glad we got delayed back there.

We find the e-bikes farther up the road and tell them what they missed. Now it's on towards Wildwood Stables and a little traffic as we pass the Jordan Pond House.

"Wait at the top of the hill, after the trees, at the Eagle Lake overlook," I tell them. There's no sign that says "Eagle Lake Overlook," but it should be obvious.

Fortunately, I'm near the front, so I can steer people across the road to the turnout. 

There are birds on the water.

We linger here because the next thing is Cadillac Mountain. I do my best to describe what's coming: "We can ride on past the ticket booth. The first part is the steepest, I think. Then it opens up. You'll see Rockefeller's teeth. The second mile feels steeper than the first. Then the road turns left. You'll have the mountain on one side and the great beyond on the other. We're not at the edge of the water but it looks that way. If you get the heebie-jeebies like I do, don't look over. Keep your eyes on the double yellow line. You'll eventually see a rock outcrop on the left. That's pretty much the end of it. There's a little more after. Meet at the gift shop at the top."

We get spread out. The e-bikes are in front, of course. Heddy is in front of me, of course. I call out to her that there's a waterfall, right as she notices it. I forgot to describe that to everyone. Sometimes it's barely a trickle. It's never really a torrent. Today it's not much more than a trickle. There hasn't been rain up here in the past few days.

Then, Rockefeller's teeth:

This is my eleventh ascent. Maybe we have a tailwind. Maybe it's because I'm having such a good time. Maybe it's all the hill training. Maybe this climb is nothing compared to what our Cabot Trail guides put us through. All I know is that I see the outcrop far sooner than I expect to. 

Dang. There are cars parked in front of the gift shop, which is already hard to see because it's set back along a short path behind some small trees. I didn't describe it at all. Oh well. Nobody's found it I guess. I'll go on to the summit parking lot.

And here we are, Free Wheelers together at the top of Cadillac Mountain! Not all at once though. We're somewhat scattered between the overlook, the paved summit path, and, apparently, the gift shop after all.

"Hey, Jeff! It's the kitty!"

The fog is still down there, lurking in the harbor.

Some of it is wandering up here.

I take a picture of my bike at the summit each time. This is the first with the Janice pin, the Muppet figurine having lost her hands and the big-headed keychain having disappeared when I took Janice in for service before the trip. The button has now survived several innundations.

A kind stranger takes a picture of most of us. Ginger is somewhere on the ascent. I'm not sure if she's staying put or on her way.

I go back to the gift shop to buy everyone a Cadillac Summit keychain like the one I have on Janice's front bag. Some of the others are here too. I place a keychain on each of their bikes. Ginger appears. We go back to the summit so she can see it. Martin takes a picture of us women looking tough.

I'm riding in circles between the summit and the gift shop, trying to herd all the cats for our trip back down the mountain. At the gift shop, Heddy spots a jumping spider for me. At first I think it's a bold jumping spider. "People keep these as pets," but, once I take a picture and zoom in, I realize I'm wrong. 

iNaturalist says it's a bronze jumping spider,

Eris militaris.

It's getting late. I suggest we take a shorter route back to town, one that will avoid the construction and that will get us closer to the bike shop. The e-bikes have to be back before 4:00, and there's all that chicken to grill.

I capture the entire descent with my Fly12 camera. (Blogger gets grumpy at big files and insists on YouTube links for them, so here's a short snippet instead.)

This way back is nearly all downhill after the mountain. We head towards Hulls Cove via Paradise Hill Road, and take the West Street Extension into town. I pretend I know where I'm going and turn up Holland Street to get to Cottage Street. Yesterday, loaded with chicken frozen veggie burgers, I led everyone up a dead end. Today I'm successful. We all go into the Bar Harbor Bicycle Shop to look at the jerseys again. No new ones have come in. 

As those of us on our own bikes get ready to leave, someone rolls in who looks vaguely familiar. Is it that guy I met in the spring, the one who climbs Cadillac every day? By the time I've thought all this, he's halfway into the store and we're pushing off.

I carry the Spider Cam in a tote bag and walk over to Party House for dinner. I miss most of the dinner prep. As big as the place is, the kitchen isn't laid out well for a big group. I hover around the edges, trying to help when I can, but I'm mostly useless.

The grill is at the head of a long table, which is under a wooden-beamed structure that is strung with white lights. The table is so big that there's room for all of us, even me and Jackie. I keep my eye on a corner of the roof, where there's an orb web with a missing sector. A Ziggy lives there. She'll come out when it's dark enough.

There is a plethora of pies, one of which is staying in the freezer because it needs to be baked. I've brought some cut-up fruit from Hannaford, and a couple of cookies from the Stadium (follow the link for an aerial view of the pier and the lower side of Main Street). I tried their cookies a few years ago, and now I get a bunch to bring home every time we visit. Big to begin with, I think these are even larger; like, some little pies have a smaller diameter. So two is more than enough with all the other desserts on the table.

As we sit, we see fog from the bay wafting past the streetlights. The Ziggy hops onto her web. We clear the table. I say my goodbyes and go back to the Ziggy. She's not in a good spot for a photo, though. I visit the ones at Exile House instead.

I'm happy here at Exile House. I'm away from the noise and chaos of Party House, but right around the corner.

Today was a good day. I finally got to lead a bunch of Free Wheelers up Cadillac Mountain. I call Jack and settle in for some more Micmac legends.