Hill Slugs in Bar Harbor 7: Cadillac 14

Hill Slugs at Cadillac Summit

photo by Ginger Werner

7 September 2026

The weather on August 26 was perfect for a bike ride up Cadillac Mountain. Plain Jim and Rickety rolled down to the Bar Harbor Inn driveway, and the seven of us rolled right back up through town.

Biking between Bar Harbor and Schooner Head Road is like biking in New Jersey, for which we are obviously well trained. One hand was off the handle bar every few seconds to point out a hole or a raised patch or a sunken storm grate. 

Schooner Head Road is mostly quiet, although it serves as a back entrance to the Jackson Laboratories. I stopped the group there and gestured: "Purveyor of fine transgenic mice to the world," I said. "If the wind is blowing the right way, we might smell autoclaving mouse food." We didn't smell anything at the moment.

Farther along, we reached the pond between the road and Champlain Mountain. It's been filling in over the years; now it looked dry.

We turned towards Schooner Head for a quick scenery stop. From here, one can see the Egg Rock Lighthouse.

We doubled back and continued to Park Loop Road, where there was a long line of cars at the ticket booth. We dug out our passes, showed them, and recombobulated behind some traffic cones on the other side. I'd taken the Schooner Head route to the park in the spring. It's a gentler way to get in, a steady, gradual climb instead of the steep ups and downs from the Sieur de Monts entrance. 

As expected, there was a lot of traffic between Sand Beach and Thunder Hole. The line for the bathrooms was so long at Thunder Hole that we decided we'd find a secluded spot in the woods somewhere else.

After we got past the crowds, we were able to stop and take pictures of the scenery that had been hidden by fog when we were here four days ago.

While we were stopped, a hiker asked me for directions. It's easy to confuse north and south. The town of Bar Harbor is north of the park, but it feels south. The Ocean Path runs north to south from Sand Beach to Otter Point. And, honestly, once I'm away from the water on Park Loop Road, I have no clear idea which direction I'm facing. North-ish, mostly. On the mountain, with all the hairpin turns, I lose the plot in the first mile.

I'm also terrible at landmarks. Maybe the rock face in the photos below is Otter Cliffs?

I led the group into the Fabbri Picnic Area. I found a tree to duck behind.

We stopped again on the causeway over Otter Creek. I pointed to Cadillac Mountain. It didn't look nearly as foreboding as it did from up in Ellsworth.

Cadillac (left) and Dorr (right)

We climbed out from Otter Creek. I pulled over again at a turnout to collect the group.

One of our riders was missing. Word was they'd gone ahead, but word also was that they didn't have the route and their GPS was giving weird distance numbers. I called and they figured they were behind us. "We'll wait," I said.

We waited and waited and waited longer than it would have taken them to get from the causeway to us.

Now I was worried. What if they were injured or had a mechanical somewhere out of cell phone range? I called again, and, fortunately, they picked up. I asked about some landmarks. "I passed Wildwood Stables and Jordan Pond."

"Stay where you are," I said. I was surprised they even had a cell signal over there. Jordan Pond is a dead zone. They were a long way in front of us now.

We climbed through the woods, past Day Mountain, past Wildwood Stables, and past Jordan Pond. Sitting on a rock wall, our lost rider was taking pictures of us as we approached. "Hop on!" I said.

I'd given instructions to pull over at the Eagle Lake overlook, "the one without the trees," because there are two after the Bubble Rock parking lot.

Here, I gave a narration of what the Cadillac Mountain climb would be like. I told them it's a steep start (I think the entrance is the steepest, but the GPS says otherwise), that it mellows out for a while, that there's a waterfall, that they'll see Rockefeller's teeth, that somewhere in the second mile they'll question their sanity, that in the third mile they shouldn't look to the right, that when they see a rock outcrop on the left, the climb is almost finished, that there's water, bathrooms, and a gift shop where the road divides at the summit, and that everyone should go their own pace and meet at the top. And that we could cruise right on past the ticket booth at the start because summit reservations aren't required for bicycles.

Ginger, on an electric bike, had the freedom to stop on the hill and take pictures of us climbing. That's Jim in front. He led the pack for the first two thirds of the three-mile climb.

I was a bit behind Jim, Jeff, and Heddy. This was my fourteenth time up the mountain, and I knew what was coming. In the second mile, keeping my own pace, I caught up. "How are y'all doing?" I asked. I don't remember if they said "great" or cursed me out. Maybe both. 

We reached a hairpin shortly after that. Jeff said, "See you at the top," gunned his e-bike motor, and disappeared off the front. 

"Garmin says this is the steepest part," Heddy said. She got in front of me and I fell a handful of bike lengths behind, which is every picture of me and Heddy on a hill ever. She was on her gravel bike, knobby tires and all, I should add. Jim fell somewhat off the back.

When we rounded the last curve to the final mile, I cued James Brown's "Talkin' Loud and Sayin' Nothing," which is the only song anyone should have in their head on that last stretch.

At the summit, I took some pictures from the parking lot, then clomped around on the paved path in my biking shoes.

Halfway around the path, I realized I was getting too far from the rest of the Slugs, and clomped up the rocks to get back to the lot. By now, everyone was assembled.

Jim said, "I made it to the top. Now I want one of those keychains everyone has*." He was talking about the ones I'd distributed in 2024 to all the folks who'd ridden to the top with me.

"You ruined it!" I said. "It's supposed to be a surprise!"

Rickety had leaned his bike against Rockefeller's teeth. It got nudged and slid, scraping some of the paint on the seat stay. "Janice is loaded with scratches from Rockefeller's teeth," I said as Jim righted the bike.

Jeff came walking up with an open bag of Wilbur's chocolate-covered blueberries. I'd told him that the blue-coated ones, which are white chocolate, are the best. Now he was wrist-deep into the bag and a true believer. He offered them around. That bag might not have made it down the mountain.

"We need to do the finger!" Heddy said. Ginger took the picture, which she sent to us later, and I forgot to text it to Tom. So, Tom, surprise!

We decided we should flex while we were at it.

We circled back to the gift shop for water, bathrooms, and whatever else anyone wanted. I dashed inside and emerged with two summit keychains. Rickety was still inside. Jim and I surreptitiously slid a keychain onto his saddlebag, and then we secured the other to Jim's. 

I went back inside and told Rickety to take a careful look at his bike. "Is something wrong?" he asked. Aside from the scratches? "No, added," I said, confusing him.

Heddy came out with a sticker.

"That's one fine moose!" I said. "Best snout!"

Eventually, we reassembled and started down the mountain. I signaled to turn into what used to be called the Blue Hill Bay Overlook and is now simply labeled as additional summit parking.

On the descent, we spread out. At the heebie-jeebie part, I was prepared for my stomach to jump into my mouth. Ahead of me, Ginger had stopped to chat with someone parked at the lower overlook. It was enough to distract me, apparently, because I was around the corner before I knew it, with all my organs intact. Fourteen descents that took. Fourteen.

We gathered at the bottom. Ginger took a picture as it was happening. Jim came down last. "Well that was terrifying," he said. I told him this was the first time in fourteen rides that I wasn't terrified.

We stayed on Park Loop Road all the way to Sieur de Monts. The stretch is nearly all downhill, and most of it freshly paved. There was a milled section, but it wasn't nearly as long as it had been in the spring.

We got back onto Route 3 and, as we crested a small hill near the Jackson Laboratories, I called out, "Smell the autoclaved mouse food!" It's a sweet smell. I realized that nobody but I would have recognized it. I didn't realize until Ginger sent the photo that she'd placed herself across from the Jax sign as we passed it.

Rickety and Jim peeled off at Atlantic Avenue. Jeff continued on to return his bike to the shop for the night. Heddy, Ginger, and I coasted up to Choco Latte to get some lunch. Also, Princess needed her coffee.

Ginger and Heddy said they were going to soak in the hotel's hot tub. "I didn't bring a bathing suit," I said. I have one or two deep in a drawer somewhere, but the last time I wore one was in 1997. "I don't have a socially acceptable body," I explained. Ginger said, "Nobody cares." I replied, "I do," which came out all wrong. What I meant was that I care that other people get upset at wrong bodies in bathing suits. I've had too many discussions with fat-shaming Free Wheelers, and a lifetime of body shaming by relatives and neighborhood bullies. 

I met them at the hot tub in my bike clothes. "I'm better now than I was," I said, which is true.

I'd never been in a hot tub before. The Bar Harbor Inn has two, at either side of the pool's deep end. Heddy and Ginger were in the cooler of the two when I showed up. I dunked myself all the way in and came up sputtering. "Salty!" I was not expecting that.

When the hotter hot tub cleared out, we climbed into the pool (cold!), swam across, and immersed ourselves in hot.

I was facing the bay when Ginger asked what time it was. Judging by the CAT coming out of the harbor, I said, "Around three o'clock."

Jeff, in his crustacean crusade, had been attempting to have some sort of seafood at every meal outside of breakfast. A visit to Abel's Lobster Pound had been agreed to a year in advance. However, now that we were on the island, he learned that the restaurant was too short-staffed to prepare the "lazy lobster," a saggital-cut, mess-free experience that Heddy had her sights on. They also weren't taking reservations.

Jeff had conferred with Elaine, and, with a potential 11 of us showing up at once, it was decided that we'd best get there early. Like, way early. Like, not even dinnertime early.

There's little on the menu for vegetarians like me. Cheryl was skeptical too. I told her I'd managed two years ago, and also cornbread. Jack wasn't much into the plan either, although he was going along with whatever. But now I was feeling protein-deprived. After I showered and was uploading photos, I gobbled down a protein bar, figuring I'd find no protein later.

The plan was to drive over to Northeast Harbor at 4:15. Rickety and Cheryl bailed. Jim and Regina bailed. Around 4:00, I said to Jack, "Think we can get a reservation at Porcelli's at 6:00?" He could, and we did, so we bailed on Abel's too.

Jeff left. I uploaded pictures. There was a knock on the door. "Turndown service?" Three more bags of chocolates.

(*At today's Princeton Free Wheelers' Labor Day All-Paces ride, Jim told a group of us that Rickety had ascended not on his climbing bike, but on his road bike with no climbing gears. Wow. About the summit prize, Jim said, "It's not a keychain. It's a goddamn medal!" Word.)