One of the joys of hiking in Acadia is that the park offers a variety of trails, from easy walks beside the ocean and around lakes or ponds to challenging climbs up sheer cliffs, with an abundance of trails that are "moderately difficult" – suitable, if challenging, for the novice but sufficiently strenuous to satisfy the experienced hiker.  I prefer the last type – the Bubble trails, Great Head, the long Bear Brook trail, Gorham Mountain.  I realize that, before very long, I will be limited to walks by the sea or along a lakeshore.  Someday, I shall start on a familiar trail, say to myself, "I can't do this anymore," and turn back.  Most of us live long enough to experience such rude awakenings, even if we don't climb physical mountains.  But until that time, I shall hike to the summits because that is more satisfying than the level path.

Nevertheless, I had to accept some limitations even before I became an "old man."  (I must use quotation marks, for I don't think I will ever consider myself an old man – a cantankerous old poop, perhaps, but never an old man.)  One such limitation is that I would be a fool to attempt the truly difficult and daunting trails.  As I have mentioned elsewhere, I am an acrophobiac; my fear of heights is a completely irrational phobia, although, with respect to some trails, I think it is quite rational.  No amount of argument will persuade me to hike a trail that bears, as the Precipice does, a sign saying:  "Warning:  People have died on this trail."  In fact, when I asked a park ranger, on our first visit to Acadia, about hiking trails, he informed me that the Precipice was "not for the faint of heart."  "You climb the cliff," he said, "on metal rungs embedded in rock.  One false footing and . . . end of story."  (The next day, Kate and I took the "moderate" Gorham Mountain trail, our first mountain hike together.)

Kate and David have a different perspective.  They haven't met a trail they won't try.  Of course, they are younger than I and don't have my fear of heights.  They would dearly love to climb the Precipice, but lately that trail has been closed to hikers while we were there because the peregrine falcons are nesting in the cliffs – further proof to me that the Precipice was created for creatures that fly, not for those who walk on two legs.

In their ongoing quest to combine the joy of hiking with the fun of risking their lives, Kate and David did two of the more challenging trails this year – the Ladder trail up Dorr Mountain and one of the more difficult trails up Mount Pemetic.  Actually, I don't think Pemetic, which is second only to Cadillac in height and is much steeper, has any trails that are not difficult.  [Left:  Steps on the Lasser trail, probably one of the less difficult sections of the hike.]

Obviously, since I was on terra firma at the cottage when they took these trails, I can offer only a secondhand account.  The Ladder trail, as its name suggests, contains a number of ladders that one must climb to get to the summit.  More than that I cannot say.  According to Kate and David, they met a man and his dog on the trail – a bit of information that I suppose was intended to convince me that the trail isn't as tough as its name implies.  I remain unconvinced and have concluded that the dog either was flown in by helicopter or was really a park ranger in a dog suit – one of those ranger jokes that they pull on tourists.

[The picture of Kate on the right is one of David's favorites, which he took in 1994 when they climbed the Beehive trail, which is in some respects like the Ladder trail, except that one uses metal rungs rather than ladders.  She is clearly very happy to be hanging off the side of a mountain.  I don't know how far the drop beneath her extends, and I don't want to know.]

Of the Pemetic trail, I can also say little.  I do know that it is long – as long as the Bear Brook trail up Mount Champlain (which I have taken only once in its entirety) and much more strenuous.  Bear Brook is tough mainly because of its length; it covers wide expanses of bare rock, and each stretch looks as if it is the summit.  There are at least seven "false" summits.  Because of its openness, the views from the Bear Brook trail are excellent, but I could readily see from Kate and David's photos that views from the somewhat higher summit of Pemetic are even better.  Of course, everyone goes up Cadillac because of the wonderful 360-degree vista (and because there is a road up the mountain), but the scenery from a mountaintop that one has reached by walking is somehow always more glorious and gratifying than that from a mountaintop one has reached by driving.  (There's a metaphorical message in that observation if you care to find it.)

On the Pemetic Trail

Left: Kate climbs
("Is this where I gotta go?")

Right: Looking up the trail
("Look out, knees, here we go")

I confess that I'm a little envious of Kate and David's Pemetic hike.  At points, the trail runs beside a mountain stream, and the hike is varied and interesting.  It also contains some scary parts.  Apparently, at one point the trail goes through a narrow cravass, from which the only exit  is a ladder.  This feature appealed to the young hikers; I don't even want to think about it.

Kate and David came down from Pemetic by another trail, apparently at such a clip that they were on a level path near Eagle Lake almost before they realized where they were.  By then they were pooped, and it was still some distance back to the original trailhead where they had parked.  At one point in this stage of their hike, they passed through a dark woods that was, by their account, so spooky that they could not wait to get out of it.  They called it "the enchanted forest" and likened it to some of the spookier locales in The Lord of the Rings.

I don't suppose I would have liked it much either, but I still think that hanging from a ladder on a mountainside with nothing beneath me but air is a lot spookier than any enchanted forest.

Magnificent view from Mount Pemetic