Is This the Most Dangerous Hike in a National Park?

Countrywide Parks may truly feel tame, but hike the steep and craggy Precipice Path in Maine’s Acadia Countrywide Park and you’re sure to get the adrenaline kick you’re wanting for.

Situated on the east deal with of Champlain Mountain, the stroll is broadly deemed the most unsafe hike of Acadia. When it is not a technological climb, the steep vertical drops and uncovered cliffs make it incredibly harmful. (The hike is no joke—a 22-year-old female fell to her loss of life listed here.)

Sometimes the only way to keep on the hike is to grasp a primitive iron ring or pull oneself up a metal ladder jutting out from the sharp granite. Tackle this trek, and you are going to glance at Countrywide Parks in a whole new way.

The stats: one,058 ft closing elevation, one.six miles spherical-vacation, spending plan 3 hrs, no canines, and young children below 5-ft 2-inches tall may not be in a position to do this hike.

Getting there: From Bar Harbor, Maine, adhere to the Park Loop Highway alongside the japanese facet of Mount Desert Island—while the Countrywide Park entrance is technically farther down the road, you are going to have to have a park move to use the Precipice parking location. The trailhead sits clearly at the edge of the parking ton.

What to deliver: Durable climbing boots, weather-ideal climbing garments, a hat, sunglasses, a smaller pack with a lot of water and meals, a camera, a smaller initially support package, and a cell cellular phone.

When to go: Severe Maine winters make this path much too unsafe throughout the winter and early spring seasons, and a lot of the spring and early summer months the path is closed off to guard nesting Peregrine falcons and their chicks. Get in touch with a park workplace to locate out when the path opens up, ordinarily in early August.

What to hope: The path kicks off with a steep, flat boulder that necessitates you to belief your boots and rely on friction to cross—a fantastic deterrent for considerably less-in a position hikers and a flavor of what to hope later on in the hike. From there, you are going to adhere to the evidently marked path via the woods, up a number of rock scrambles, and to your initially established of rungs. The path emerges on to a steep ledge that winds back and forth up the mountain, with some ladders and very long rungs peppered in alongside the way. The best of the mountain delivers a lot of lovely vantage factors and lunch places. You are allowed to adhere to the path back the way you arrived, but we counsel creating it a loop for a safer encounter.

Do: Pluck a wild Maine blueberry to snack on towards the best of your hike.

Really don’t: Lose your harmony or consider your fingers off the metal rungs for a picture unless of course you’re safe. If you consider a tumble, it may be your last.

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