A Sunny Day at Bradbury Mountain

View from the central summit.

This time around at Bradbury Mountain I wanted to check out a different summit view and see what the Batcave trail was all about.  Because, well, come on, who wouldn't be curious about a trail called Batcave.

We started off going up the Summit trail to the central summit view, down the Bluff trial to that summit view (which was far less impressive) and then backtracking the Bluff trail to Switchback, and down Switchback to the parking lot.

View from the Bluff trail summit.

Not a very difficult hike, seeing as there are lots handy staircases built into the steep parts for you to hike up.

Stairs leading up the Summit trail.

Stairs on the Summit trail right before the summit.

Stairs on the Switchback trail.

After checking out the summits we headed across the street to see what the East side trails were all about.

These trails might not have the steep inclines that you see going up to the summits, but they're far longer.

Lots of trails that look like this on the East side.

And this.

And stone walls.  Just about every intersection has a map, so you'd probably have to be trying to get lost.

Plenty of streams on this side of the park too.

On the way to the Batcave we saw some swampy areas and evidence of beavers.  The trails in the most swampy areas have boardwalk.

Flooding from beavers.

Beaver dam.

Boardwalk over the really swampy areas.

Beaver lodge.

It was probably about a little over a mile of a hike into the Batcave trail, but eventually we made it.  Alas, there were no bats, and the 'cave' wasn't too impressive.

View from one side of the Batcave.

View from the other side of the Batcave.

Maybe overhanging rocks like this are rare here in Maine, but having grown up in Connecticut I'm pretty used to them.  So, it was sort of a little anticlimactic to finally see the Batcave.  But hey, now I check that off my list of things to explore, and seeing all that work the beavers did was pretty cool.

We then headed back to the parking lot, where Denali enjoyed what will most likely be his last roll of the season in snow.  In all, we spent a little less that 2 hours hiking.