I also got a letter from my friend Donnie who has spent the last five years in prison. I met him in my senior year of high school and took him under my wing, he’s a couple years younger than me and someone I consider a brother. I saw him playing the piano one day and brought him on board as a producer for my record label. He quickly transitioned into rapping as well with aspirations for much more. He lived with me for a short while after his grandmother, who’d been taking care of him, died suddenly, leaving him with nowhere to go as his parents had both passed away, as well as most of his other close relatives. He ran with some bad friends at the time and even though he was headed for bigger and better things, couldn’t abandon his old crew. We fell out of touch when I moved up to Maine and he got deeper into the illegal lifestyle so many from our culture succumb to. He reached out to me in 2010 when he was wanted for armed robbery and I’ve been his only lifeline to the outside for his incarceration. What was supposed to be a six year sentence turned into twelve due to a mistake made by his court appointed lawyer. He’s been fighting to get his sentence reduced to what it originally was but just found out that the judge only took one year off his sentence. He also needs to have an MRI due to a clot in his brain. Not good news. It had me a bit bummed and I decided I needed to explore the mountains today.So on a whim we headed for Acadia, stopping first at Dairy Queen for some lunch. We made it to my destination, the Precipice trailhead around 2:00. Jaime stayed in the car while I went searching for The Hanging Steps once again, this time pretty sure I knew where they were located. Wrong again.
This time I went straight up the boulder field until hitting a small cliff at the top. I took a left here when I probably should have taken a right. Upon closer scrutiny, the steps are most likely on the rock climber’s wall just below the top of the slide. But I continued on up the mountain, seeing a break in the trees up ahead. I ended up scaling the entire side of Champlain Mountain, getting some incredible views along the way and finally reaching the Ridge Trail that makes its way to the summit. No Hanging Steps. I thought about going back down the way I came up and taking that right hand turn just above the slide but climbing down the way I came wouldn’t be too safe.
So I called Jaime at the car and told her to meet me at Sand Beach as I planned on going down the Ridge Trail to The Bowl, then down around the backside of the Beehive to Sand Beach. But she realized her name wasn’t on the park pass and wouldn’t be allowed through the gate to get to Sand Beach. And with the park loop road being one way, she couldn’t drive back and meet me at the other end of the Ridge Trail. Uh oh.
I tried to find my way down the way I’d come up but couldn’t find the spot I popped out on the trail. To the left and to the right were sheer cliffs, I’d come up the one safe way. I originally intended on going down the Ridge Trail and walking along the road back to the car but that meant over a three mile walk plus the mile and a half of trail.
So I did something stupid, I descended via The Precipice Trail. It’s only a mile, but it’s a mile straight down a thousand foot cliff with iron rungs and ladders. It’s meant to ascended but all the signs warn you to find a different way down. People die on this trail. Five and a half miles versus one mile. I took the trail down. A trail I’ve never gone up before. I didn’t need to go all the way down, just to the first tree line where I would take the abandoned cliff trail to The Great Cave and cut off a few tenths of a mile. Of course, I would be going down the hardest part of the mountain.
I pushed my fear aside and went for it. Luckily it was getting later in the day so I only met a few groups going up. I had to get out of the way for them as they were going the right way, up. I could hear them coming every time and stopped at a safe-ish place to let them by. They were all friendly and showed concern for me going down the mountain that way but I told them I was experienced and not to worry about me, most of them actually needed a little pep talk of their own as that trail is quite scary. I even met a girl who was doing The Precipice as her first hike ever. I gave them all pointers, told some of them about secret places not found on the map and carried on.
It certainly isn’t easy climbing down the trail but I wasn’t as terrified as I thought I’d be. See, I have a healthy fear of heights, nothing too serious, we’ll just say I don’t like them. But one of my tricks in life is that if you pretend something enough, it becomes real to you. So I just tell myself I’m not scared of heights, get myself amped up, and go for it. It works every time. Turn that fear into excitement. Only once did I get a little scared and that was on an extremely narrow ledge with no rungs and a huge drop off where it looked like the ground was getting closer by the second and then pulling away, exactly the way they show it on TV. I was glad to step aside for a gentleman coming up and he apparently did not like that ledge either due to there not being any railings whatsoever. I talked him through it and we both went on our way.I think what helped me the most on my descent was knowing I have the upper body strength to hold myself up if I missed a rung. So with every step, I would hold on tight and prepare to fall so if it happened I’d be ready. If you’re expecting something, you’re better equipped to deal with it when it comes. When you’re not ready, it’s the element of surprise that catches you off guard.
I held onto the iron rungs at the curve in order to get a better grip. I’m glad I did because in a few spots, there wasn’t a rung where there should have been. I looked down every time which isn’t recommended but I did alright, all the while telling myself I wasn’t afraid of heights, and saw that the rung was indeed missing as I could see little spokes of them popping out of the rock ledge. The fact that these broke off did not comfort me at all but I was holding on tight enough that it didn’t matter, I just used a little more arm muscle and lowered myself slowly.
One rung at a time, that’s all you can do. And I enjoyed myself while up there, taking in the views and appreciating the experience. And honestly, if placed in that situation again, I wouldn’t hesitate to climb down the Precipice once again, as long as it wasn’t at a busy time because I wouldn’t want to get in anyone’s way going up. But the fact of the matter is, it is a very dangerous trail and I see why so many get hurt and die on it. Both the physical and mental aspects are quite daunting and shouldn’t be taken lightly. I was prepared for this mountain and still felt intimidated by it so for those who don’t know what they’re getting into, its easy to understand why they don’t make it.
Part way down the trail, I veered off into the woods on the long abandoned cliff trail to The Great Cave. I’d found it a few weeks ago coming from the other direction and even climbed some of the rungs on the Precipice just to see what it was like. So I knew exactly where I was going and followed the lost trail as if it were the marked path. It cut out a good three or four tenths of a mile and brought me through a slab cave with a view of the ocean, beneath a hanging boulder suspended over a stone stairwell and down to the Great Cave which holds a dear spot in my heart since it is what got me into ‘off trailing’ and finding abandoned paths. From there it was down the rockslide which I’m able to do easily now after all of the other rockslides I’ve encountered, and then down the easy part of the trail and back to the car where Jaime was patiently waiting for me, reading a magazine.We stopped at Blueberry Hill once again and got the exact same ice creams we had just two days ago, yet the price went up by 53 cents. But my peanut butter pie sundae was delicious. Jaime had a craving for hot dogs and hamburgers on our way home so we stopped at Five Guys for supper. I figured that would gain back any weight I might have lost in my long day of sweating. But I only ate half my meal as my stomach is finally shrinking, at least on the inside, thanks to my diet. Surprisingly I was down to possibly my lowest weight yet at 205, down a couple pounds from my normal 207.
I talked to my sister on the phone for an hour and a half to end the day, we haven’t talked since she headed off for the Spring earlier this year so we had a lot to catch up on. Most of the parks she travels to don’t have any cell service and they have to travel quite a few miles into town to even get spotty wifi so we go many months at a time without talking, then catch up on one another's adventures. She’s both bummed and excited to be back home for awhile but knows that after her two years are up it’ll open countless opportunities for her career.
Oh and we also stopped at Marshalls on our way back through Ellsworth where Jaime got a few things including some new boots and I went to Goodwill where I found an LL Bean raincoat size XXL for either me or Jaime. We don’t have raincoats and will most likely need them for our vacation so I’ve been searching but they’re always too small or don’t have hoods. XXL is a little big but its great for hiking because it gives you room to move around freely, and its LL Bean so you can’t really beat that for only $8. One more to go now and we’ll both be ready for the rain. And yeah, my legs are definitely feeling the strenuous climb. I can’t wait to move to NH and do this everyday.
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