On Saturday morning, Tarah and I were the first people in the United States to see the sun. At about 2:00 am we left the comfort and warmth of our home and headed to Acadia. At about 4:00 am we left the trail head on Rt. 3 and headed for the summit of Cadillac Mountain, the highest point on the east coast, north of Brazil, and because of the time of the year, the first place in the United States to see the light of the sun.
The ascent was absolutely incredible. Along with our headlamps, we also had the benefit of a glorious full moon and a crystal clear sky. The moon light reflecting off of the veins of ice on the granite was spectacular. When we left the cover of the trees, we were actually blinded by the brightness of the moon.
We hit the summit at a little before 6:00 am, right around the time of nautical twilight. Despite the brutal temps and wind, we hunkered down for a bit and enjoyed the thin ribbon of color inching over the horizon.
Because the actual sunrise wasn't until 7:00 am, we ended up catching our first glimpse of the sun on our way back down the trail. The view at The Feathers, right before we got an arboreal relief from the wind, can't be done justice by words. The sun was right above Sand Beach and there were just enough clouds in the sky to give the sun something to accent. If that weren't enough, if we turned 180°we could still see the full moon and its reflection in The Feathers. It is moments like that, that I wonder how so many people can think that Earth is just a lucky coincidence.
This hike was also an opportunity to test out a piece of gear that we recently acquired for our AT journey. We brought our SPOT Satellite Personal Tracker and uploaded 6 GPS waypoints. The SPOT sends an email with a generic "everything's O.K." message along with coordinates on a Google map whenever we press the designated button. 1 2 3 4 5 6
SPOT is also trying out something called shared pages, ours is here.
Despite our camera being freeze proof, the
battery isn't so photos were limited. Also, there was condensation on the lens, so the couple of photos Tarah did snap aren't super clear.
(the photo at the top is us at the summit, the photo on the left is the horizon just before twilight, the photo on the right is the moon)
