Mt Desert is fabulous! Cadillac Mountain was the highlight. We hiked up the North Ridge to the top, altitude 1530 feet. Then we "hiked" down the West Face. While we came off the mountain with no broken bones and just a few scratches, the "hike" down the mountain could not be described any other way, it was extreme. The rangers of Acadia National Forest need to better protect ignorant visitors, like us, from ourselves. Somehow they need to make it more clear these well known and well advertised trails are more than just hikes, which is what the ranger at the ranger station told us they were. Our final inquiry about coming down the West Face was to an older couple who had struggled up the North Ridge. They dismissed questions about the West Face with a, well, we did it a couple of years ago. For us the trip up was great exercise. The trip down scared us some. Kinda like a solid blue skier getting stuck on a double black diamond trail.
These two pictures are back up what we just came down. They don't do justice to what we were climbing down.
For those of you who ask why we didn't just go back up and down the North Ridge, which was strenuous but not extreme. The trail became more and more precarious as we went down. By the time we were concerned we thought we were almost done. Another thing the rangers need to address, distance markers. The West Face might be 0.9 miles straight down, but you can't go straight down, unless you are rappelling.
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