Cadillac Mountain
| Cadillac Mountain | ||
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 Sunset behind Cadillac Mountain |
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| height | 470 m | |
| location | Maine , USA | |
| Mountains | Desert Mountain Island | |
| Coordinates | 44 ° 21 '7 " N , 68 ° 13' 30" W | |
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Cadillac Mountain is a mountain on Mount Desert Island off the coast of the state of Maine in the United States . It is located in the middle of the Acadia National Park and has a height of 470 m. Its peak is considered to be the first point in the United States that the rays of the rising sun hit.
In the last ice age , Mount Desert Island was covered by a layer of ice up to 3 km thick. After the ice melted, rounded mountains, elongated lakes, countless rocks and the approximately 9 km long and 40 m deep Somes Sound , the only fjord on the east coast of the United States, became visible . The mountain consists mainly of pink granite and is covered with fir and pine forests. Above the tree line, subalpine plants and flowers are predominant, for example cinquefoil , blueberries and literacy (reading ability) cranberries .
Cadillac Mountain was formerly called Green Mountain but was renamed in 1918. It was named after the French Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac , an adventurer and visionary who received a piece of land in Acadia (now Maine) including Mount Desert Island from the governor of New France in 1688 in order to establish a seigneury there, albeit in vain .
Between 1883 and 1890, the Green Mountain Railway , a cogwheel train , ran to the summit of the Cadillac Mountains and took passengers to the Green Mountain Hotel there . The route was 1.83 km long and led from Bar Harbor , the largest city on the island, to the hotel, but was closed again in 1890. The hotel burned down in 1895 and was never rebuilt. Since 1931 a 6 km long asphalt road has been winding up the mountain in many turns, but various hiking trails also invite you to climb the summit, from which you have a spectacular view of the national park and the numerous surrounding islands. A spectacle of a special kind are the sunrises, where several hundred onlookers often gather on the summit to see the nation's first rays of sunshine .
Individual evidence
- ^ Acadia National Park
- ↑ Cadillac Mountain
- ↑ Jay Itzkowitz (Ed.): APA-Guides New England , page 264ff. RV Reise- und Verkehrsverlag GmbH, Munich 1991. ISBN 3-575-21415-8
literature
- Peter D. Bachelder: Steam to the Summit. The Green Mountain Railway, Bar Harbor's Remarkable Cog Railroad. Breakwater Press, Ellsworth 2005, ISBN 978-0966483116 .
Web links
- Cadillac Mountain
- [1] and [2] original photos of the railway from www.mainememory.net
- Cadillac Mountain