Mumpus Free Climbs The Beehive

Breakfast Sundae :)

A Cairns at the summit

Mumpus scales the rock face

A nervous Grumpus crosses the iron bridge

Our day began with a 3.5 mile run, then a delicious 3 course breakfast at our B&B that ended with.... 2 banana splits (For BREAKFAST!) We also saw a bluejay. After breakfast we headed to the Acadia Visitor's Center, where we bought a laminated "Birds of Maine" brochure-like thing as part of our quest to become amateur ornithologists.

Grumpus goes for the top

Being "birders", we started at a parking lot with telescopes pointed at a peregrine falcon nest. These birds have been considered extinct since the 1960s, but very recently (as the mercury pollution has gotten better) they had made a miraculous comeback. We got there just as a bald eagle and several turkey vultures were soaring overhead, and Mumpus asked to borrow the park ranger's sweet binoculars, but was shot down. So we had to settle for the telescopes and our own eyes (not as sweet).

After a few minutes of looking at birds flying very high without binoculars (not so interesting), we were ready to get onto the trail of the most dangerous, strenuous, super-awesome hike in the park, only to discover that it was closed because of the falcon nests on the cliff we were planning to climb. Beyond looking really cool, peregrine falcons are the fasted birds in the world, and the thought of one of them diving at Mumpus or Grumpus on an iron ladder on the side of a mountain sounded pretty terrible, so we called an audible and headed for the Beehive, the second steepest ascent in the park.

We started up the Beehive feeling pretty good. It was steep, but not too bad. Then we got to the steep part of the trail -- and it was serious. It began with a section of iron rungs in the form of steps, handle bars and a pseudo-bridge. The trail whittled down to a very narrow path along the cliff face, that we scaled using the iron rungs and crevasses in the rock face. It was NOT a path for someone with vertigo. As we approached the top, we came to a fork: it was either free climb up the steep rock face or turn to the right. Mumpus, who was team leader, was in the zone and didn't see the "blue blazes" marking the path to the right, so she scurried up the rock face like a true tough! Grumpus didn't want to get punked, so he nervously followed her up, but it was very scary.

The turkey vulture approaches...

Once we got to the summit we were greeted by a turkey vulture flying right over our heads! It was awesome, although it would have been about a million times cooler if it was the bald eagle.

As the trail wound down the back of the mountain we got to a pond where we saw the Biggest Frog in the World, and some major league tad poles.

The lake with the huge frog

We took a few nature shots on our way back to the car, since we need to become expert photographers if we're going to be adventure writers. The only downside of the walk back was that we could hear lots of birds, but we couldn't see them.