Warm Hike Up Cadillac Mountain Still A Ton of Deep Snow

I flew solo today! I left home at 8:40 am and arrived at the gated Access Road at 10:40 am.

Along I-295 in Gardiner

Rte. 3 In Bar Harbor

 It was very sunny with deep snows but you could punch through at any moment to knee deep.  I lugged way too much equipment including my snowshoes lashed to my pack which I never needed. 

 Followed the roadway which was packed by snowmobiles to the base of Cadillac and had a great walk to the summit. 

Two snowmobilers kept leapfrogging me along the way. 

 I thought I saw a few ants crawling around Jordan Pond and this is what I saw when I zoomed in on them with my camera:

Looking out to the ocean I could see Great Cranberry Island.  I said to myself, "In twelve weeks I will be out there going form one end to another eight times."  I wondered if that were to come true.

 I arrived at the summit around 1:00 pm and it was 40 degrees and brilliant.  Poked around the top including a huge snowdrift near the Blue Hill Overlook.

Using the interpretive plaques at the peak I was able to spot 

Mt. Katahdin and I zoomed in as best as my little Canon could manage.

You can see things in the winter that you can't see in other seasons.  Lack of foliage and the contrasts between light and dark let details reveal themselves.  In this case I was looking into the gap between where I was standing and Dorr Mountain and I noticed a pond I had never seen before.

 I started to descend and took a few short cuts across deep snow between roadway switchbacks and I regretted that decision as I post-holed in several locations near vegetation.  Of course I was too lazy to slip on the snowshoes that I had lugged onto my pack.  A skier had passed me on the way up and I met him on the way down as he had his own personal ski mountain with no lift line safe and hour climb.  I am curious if he did more than one run that day?

  I arrived uneventfully at the base around 2:30 pm and I was home by 5:00pm.