Audio
Access Wayside: To The Top
Transcript
At Eagle Lake Overlook on the side of Cadillac Summit Road, a wayside exhibit features an informational panel angled on a stone pedestal. The exhibit overlooks a peaceful view of Eagle Lake. A gently sloping mountain stands in the distance.
The exhibit's title, "To the Top!" appears over an historic black-and-white image of railroad tracks curving over rugged hillsides. These are the same rugged hillsides seen in this view, although the tracks of the cog railroad that once led to the top of the mountain are no longer here.
Introductory text reads: "On foot, by rail, by road - people have made their way to the summit of Cadillac Mountain for centuries ... in the late 1800s, entrepreneur Frank Clergue devised an ambitious system in which carriages hauled passengers from Bar Harbor to Eagle Lake, where they boarded a steamboat that took them to a cog railroad, which carried them up this steep western slope. The three-tier excursion took 90 minutes."
A quote: "There is a tolerable road up ... to the summit, though the usual and, perhaps more agreeable plan is to walk." - Clara Barnes Martin, Mount Desert on the Coast of Maine, 1867
Insets show three historic images:
-A paddlewheel and a tall smokestack distinguish the steamboat Wauwinnet, which carried visitors down Eagle Lake to the cog railroad base station in the late 1800s.
-A railway and steamer ticket uses Cadillac Mountain's former name - Green Mountain.
-A few passengers sit in an open-air railway car with a canopy roof. This car "had a braking system in case of an emergency. Side curtains could be lowered in foul weather."
More text makes this recommendation: Walk to the summit using the North Ridge Trail from Park Loop Road, 4.4 miles round-trip, or the South Ridge Trail from Otter Creek, 7 miles round-trip.
Description
Recorded audio description of a wayside, "To The Top."
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