With the beautiful weather predicted for today, we knew in advance we’d be making a trip to Acadia. Finally, no humidity, for today at least, it comes back tomorrow. But first we had to make a stop at Best Buy to pick up the brand new Five Finger Death Punch album, it’s a Jaime thing, not me. They’re her favorite band so we usually do the whole midnight release on Monday night at Bullmoose Music but it turns out a couple months ago new music stopped coming out on Tuesday and now comes out on Friday. It would have been better in our new car stereo but we’ll have to wait one more week for that. So no Acadia for awhile after today because Tuesday is supposed to be rainy and humid, Friday we’re having lobster with my father in law and getting our stereo done, the following Tuesday we’ll probably be doing some final preparation before we leave for our two week vacation to NH on Friday. So we made today count.
After bumping the new Five Finger all the way to Ellsworth, we stopped at Wendy’s for some lunch and brought it to the Mardens parking lot to eat. Mardens parking lot? Yes, you see it was once Walmart, which is where Jaime worked when we first met. So when I spent my first summer up here with her, I would meet her at the Walmart parking lot for her breaks. Now when we’re passing through and need a place to stop and eat our meal, we park in the far corner facing the woods where we used to sit on her lunch breaks.
Today, I was finding those damn Hanging Steps. Pretty sure I knew where they were, I set out by myself to find them and then come back and get Jaime. If they were where I thought, it’d take just a few minutes. So I started out on the rock climber’s trail like I’ve done a few times before and made my way to the boulder field beneath the cliff. I knew the stairway was somewhere on that cliff so I went to the bottom of it and followed it, past the talus caves, past the gnarled old Birch tree, past the rockslide gully, up past the climbers, and up, up, up until the cliffs got smaller and covered in trees. I knew I missed the steps again, but I kept going just in case, all the way to the top of the slide, then veering to the right and going above the giant cliff, keeping a good distance from the ledge as it’s a looooong way down. I actually found another rockslide high up on the mountain above the cliff and followed that up a ways but no stairs. So I circled back and made my slow descent down the treacherous rockslide. My legs got a bit scratched up along the way but luckily I had my Neosporin in the, damn it, on the counter in the bathroom.
So back down the rockslide, I stopped at the rockslide gully I checked out on my way by because it looked pretty cool but was way too close to the road to be the Hanging Steps. And then I noticed some stone steps going up the slide, like I’ve seen so many times this summer. Brunnow was a master of the stone stair. I followed them, looking up high for signs of stairs or the metal rungs you hold onto as to not tumble over the side of the cliff. And there it was, the iron railing at the top of the stairs. I stopped dead in my tracks. Holy shit I found them. After searching all summer, reading over old maps, hours of climbing, miles of hiking up and down the side of that damn mountain. Turns out they’re right there, five minutes from the road. I laughed at myself because I pulled a Matt, not seeing something that was right there. I’d passed by that spot multiple times this summer and never explored it fully. How I missed those blatant steps up the rockslide is beyond me.
So I ran, yes ran back to the car to get Jaime. Since she was with me on almost all of our searches, there was no way I was going to find those steps without her so in all of my excitement, I didn’t even go to see them, just saw where they were and left. I did the same thing with The Great Cave last year, but unfortunately it was too hard for her to get to that day but this one she’d be able to do no problem. An hour and a half after I left the car, I returned.
We made our way up to the spot I saw the metal railing atop the cliffs and searched for the stairs. It didn’t take much, rock steps lead right to them. Iron poles hold the giant blocks in place, just like I’d read. The stairway just seems to balance there, nothing on either side of it for most of the way up, then it passes through a crack in the cliff where the stairs are carved into the ledge naturally. As soon as I saw that I realized this is what Brunnow was trying to preserve, the stairway had once been all natural but overtime the rock erodes, quite quickly with the winter weather on the island. Just like Old Man Of The Mountains was completely natural but held together with iron and cables for years, that’s what Brunnow had done here. The stairs on the lower half had fallen or eroded so he connected his artificial staircase with the natural one. It is beyond amazing, I still can’t figure out how he not only built it but got it to stay there.
I slowly climbed the steps, careful not to fall into the chasms on both sides of the stairway that looked like they’d be cool to explore, if only you could get into them. At the top I walked out onto the viewing area above where the metal railing was used to stop you from falling over the edge. It is a little dilapidated now but it feels safer to hold onto something when up that high. The view was amazing. The cliffs, the rockslide, the ocean, the steep side of Champlain we’d spent most of our searches on, just a tenth of a mile away. Jaime decided she had to go up the stairs too after taking pictures of me doing it.
I explored the area above, seeing where the well worn path went to. It rounded the corner to another steep cliff with a giant slab of rock that had fallen off, standing there, sticking straight up into the air. I climbed around it and into some boulder caves just beyond it that I could have squeezed through but would have had to crawl through porcupine poop to do it. I decided not to and went back. But I did crawl under a boulder at the viewing area above the steps to get a broader view of the ocean.
We made our way down the steps and into the shallow chasm on the easy side of the stairs that looked like it had a cave at the bottom. It did. It was a tight squeeze but Jaime filmed me as I crawled into the cave. During not so dry weather there would be a tiny pool of water down there but it was mostly dry today, just a little damp. There was another passage that lead away from the dry pool but it was just a tad too small to squeeze into. The part I could have crawled into only went about five feet before turning a corner and getting smaller. It was still cool to crawl into a cave though.
Then I decided since I made it into there, maybe I should try to get into the chasm on the other side of the steps which looked like a giant pothole filled with boulders, including one that dangled above it, wedged between the towering cliff and another bigger boulder. It turned out that beneath the dangling boulder there was a gap you could climb through. It required pulling myself up a rock, hanging over the side of it and shimmying through the hole. I thought it would be too hard to get out but Jaime told me to go for it, I’d find a way out. So I did. I got some cool pictures in there and explored a bit, checking out the cracks and crevices and the ferns and moss we admired from above. And she was right, there were a couple more crevices I could squeeze out of so rather than go out the way I came in, I made it a loop trail and squeezed through another crevice on my belly, of course with her filming me, making me laugh. I did find a neat little rock on my belly slide out.
While making our way down, a couple girls were coming up with their rock climbing gear. They were heading up the Hanging Steps to climb the cliff around the corner, so apparently the steps aren’t very secret. Climbers use them like its nothing, no clue they’re on a century old trail that some people have been searching years for. I searched specifically for that online so many times too, seeing if there were stairs that the rock climbers used but there was no mention of them anywhere so I assumed it wasn’t possible. She also referred to the giant standing slab of rock as ‘the tombstone’, so in my book, that’s how it will be referred to. It seems silly, we searched for months for something people use all the time. There’s actually a rock climbing route directly across from the stairs, metal clasps in the rock and everything, just a regular route they take up the headwall. I bet those stairs are climbed at least once a week and none of them think anything of it.
I explored some of the talus caves beneath the boulder field on our way back to the car, some went nowhere, others traveled beneath multiple boulders, weaving in and out between rocks where daylight was visible above. I would have loved this as a kid, what am I saying, I loved it now as an adult. There were multiple chambers and entrances and chimneys to crawl up. Jaime waited patiently while her 31 year old child explored.
Overjoyed with our ‘discovery’ of the Hanging Steps, we moved on to find Tilting Rock also known as the Sea Stack on Day Mountain. Last time we went the wrong way and followed the easy ‘trail’ which was once the road, not realizing we had to leave that path early on. But this time we found the path we should have taken, someone had actually marked it with neon tape on the branches every few feet, as well as the cairns that can get pretty hard to follow in the woods. And the tape lead us right to the Tilting Rock which was much bigger than it looked in the old pictures. I’d seen a couple of modern day photos from some other explorers who found the Sea Stack earlier this summer. So I knew it was pretty big but wow, that thing is massive. I’ve been researching it for awhile now and its called a sea stack because the ocean actually piled those boulders there back when the mountain was lower and along the shore. The waves threw the boulders around, and created a stack that leaned against the rock cliff. This thing has to be about twenty feet tall. I see why there was once a trail to it, but don’t get why there is no trail to it anymore. So thank you to whoever marked the trees along the abandoned trail. I climbed up the Sea Stack almost to the top while Jaime peed nearby. She decided today that we would photograph the places she tinkled, post them on Instagram and hash tag them #Ipeedthere. That was the second of the day as she also relieved herself in an indent in the cliff by the Hanging Steps.
We followed the tape on the trees, taking us directly beneath the carriage road that circles up and around Day Mountain. The ‘trail’ brought us past some cool rock ledges with small caves and crevices. This is where I quoted the term ‘squirrel-lunking’, spelunking for squirrels, the small caves I can’t fit into but small woodland creatures certainly can. What I need to do is befriend a squirrel, strap a GoPro to his back and have him explore the small caves for me. We did find some that I could fit into though, mostly giant cracks where the cliff began to split and I could squeeze inside the narrow passage. They were pretty cool and fun to climb around in. The neon tape markings brought us right back to the old roadway path we had taken last time which lead us right back to our car. Feel kind of stupid for missing it last time.
With only a half hour left of sunlight we began our journey home which included a stop at Giant Sub for Jaime, where she used to get lunch everyday when she worked at Walmart just up the road. Then to Tim Hortons for an ice cream since we didn’t go to Blueberry Hill. Then to Asian Palace for some Chinese food for me.
Shortly after we got home, Donnie called from prison so we talked for a little. He got moved to a different cell block which is like starting over again but he has a job there now sweeping floors at night. In prison its good to have a job because unlike people think, you don’t get stuff for free in there, they have to pay for everything and I mean everything. The jobs pay next to nothing but it gives him something to do. Like he said in his last letter, the judge only took off one year from his sentence but some good news came as well because he might be able to get his sentence reduced more. His lawyer had agreed to the deal he wasn’t supposed to agree to five years ago, which doubled Donnie’s sentence, a law changed right after that which meant Donnie had to deal with it and serve the time given to him. But, when the lawyer agreed to the sentencing, that law hadn’t been in effect yet and one of the judges contacted Donnie about it and wants his case to basically be retried. If that goes through, he could be out like, immediately because he’s served more than the four years he was originally supposed to serve. Bad news, the doctors are pretty sure he has a tumor in his brain which hopefully is benign. He goes back in a couple weeks for another MRI to see if there’s been any change in it. We’re hoping it was caught early enough and isn’t cancerous. If praying meant anything I’d do it, but since it doesn’t, I’ll do what I’ve been doing for the past five years and simply have his back and do whatever I can to help him pull through. He appreciates whatever I do for him immensely since no one else does a damn thing. So I’ll end this with a piece of advice from both Donnie and myself, if you know someone going through hard times, don’t waste your energy on a prayer for them, use that energy on doing something for them instead. Anyone can pray for a better outcome, it takes a friend to make it happen.
So plans kind of changed today. We decided to try to find Mascot Pond and Mine in Gorham. The problem is trying to find information on the trail which is mostly on old utility roads currently used by snowmobiles and ATVs. I had an idea where it was but directions were too confusing to follow which is strange considering part of the trail is actually on the Appalachian Trail but it’s a part known for being confusing.
We crossed the old railroad bridge around 9:00 and headed right where it looked like it’d be a quicker route to the actual trail. And it would have been, if the fenced off dam and building weren’t in the way. So we walked on the dirt road out around a mostly dried up reservoir, doubled back on the other side of it and finally found what appeared to be the trail. We met a couple of confused Appalachian Trail hikers who said they thought the pond was in the direction we were going and wanted to know how to get to the main road. I went ahead a couple times to see if we were going the right way whenever the trail split. After enough of these we questioned if we were even in the right place.
There were multiple unmarked or poorly marked paths so I ran ahead to make sure we were going the right way while the other three waited by a cute little stream beneath some power lines. Luckily the power lines didn’t last for long because I hate those sunny sections of trail. After that I hit a shady forested area along the stream and started jogging. A few tenths of a mile later I saw the sign that pointed down a side trail to Mascot Pond and could just barely make it out between the trees so ran back to get Jaime and my parents.
We finally reached Mascot Pond with its incredible view of the Presidential range. Behind the pond is a steep open hillside covered with talus scree beneath rock ledges. Carved into the ledges are the old mines which are unfortunately gated in order to protect the large bat population that hibernate there. The rockslide was extremely difficult to make it up but I made it while the others waited at the bottom. Some slides aren’t as bad because there’s larger rocks to support you but this one was mostly sand and small pebble sized stones with nothing to grip onto. Slowly but surely I made it up. The views from the mine entrance were incredible and the mine looked awesome. I wish it was possible to get inside it. I’ve never been in a mine before but hopefully soon. It’s always been a life goal of mine.
After exploring a bit and grabbing some cool rocks we were on our way. We ended up finding the trail we should have taken, right where I thought it should have been. The problem was that the trail used to cross over the dam but is now blocked off to public use. The trailhead is even aimed in the wrong direction so its clear it once came from the other way. Had we been able to cross the dam the way the maps showed it would have been a 1.2 mile rather than the over 2 mile walk it actually was. We accidentally found a shorter way back which was nice.
My parents and I headed up the start of the Tuckerman Ravine trail to Crystal Cascade while Jaime waited in the car. Which is good because it was steeper than I’d anticipated but the falls were breathtaking. There was a lot more water than I expected. Doing this part of the trail definitely makes me want to go up Tuckerman Ravine again at some point since I haven’t done it since I was five years old but certainly isn’t easy.
We went to the gift shop there afterwards and I was looking at a geology book of New Hampshire where I saw pictures of Mascot Mine as it once looked when the mine was in operation as well as a picture of the Woodstock Silver Mine. I’d never heard of it before and have been researching it tonight to try to find. I ended up finding a couple others in the area as well, now we’ll see if I can locate them in the real world and not just where they might be on Google Earth.
That was our last walk of the day as we headed to Lincoln. We’re all checked into our hotel. We have a big room with two beds and a view over the river out back. I went to town alone to get some things. It’s weird how it feels right being here, like this is where I belong, this town. It made me realize I’m definitely ready to move here. In my heart, this is home.
