And we're climbing the staircase to . . .

With a handful of daylight hours to spare after the cruise, Bruce and I set out for a nearby hike.  We caught the Bus to Sieur de Mont and headed up Dorr Mountain.  The trail is almost straight up with a staircase carved directly out of the mountain's granite bedrock acting as the trail for most of the >1000 ft ascent (my fitbit registered over 100 flights of stairs during the ascent).  We reached the top where we got great views of the Bay (including the next cruise on the schooner) and of nearby Cadillac Mountain.  At this point it was nearing dark, so we weighed the several options: head down and back up a saddle to Cadillac Mountain where we'd have to hitch a ride (no buses up there), or three other trails that could return us to Sieur de Mont.  We opted for the North Ridge trail which ended up being a 30+ degreee decent through a boulder field, which very quickly left the ridge top onto the east side of the mountain where the sun had already set.  We somehow managed to avoid limb breakage in our dark stumble down and made our way back to the bus stop just as darkness fell at the base.  We took a brief tour of the gardens where I once again viewed the "bird home" that we first discovered back in 2004, and then waited in pitch darkness and building cold until the last bus arrived to take us back to town.

View from Dorr Mountain, including our schooner on its next cruise.