Cadillac Mountain

Sunset behind the Cadillac Mountain

With Cadillac Mountain is a mountain on an island off the coast of the state of Maine is known in the United States. It is located on Mount Desert Iceland in the middle of Acadia National Park and has a height of 470 m. The summit of Cadillac Mountain is considered the point in the United States, the rays of the rising sun first.

In the last Ice Age Mount Desert Iceland from up to 3 km thick ice was covered. After the melting of the ice mountains rounded, elongated lakes, countless rocks and the 9 km long and 40 m deep were Somes Sound visible, the only fjord on the East Coast of the United States. The mountain consists mainly of pink colored granite and is covered with fir and pine forests. Above the tree line subalpine plants and flowers are dominant, for example, cinquefoil, blueberries and cranberries.

The Cadillac Mountain was formerly known as Green Mountain, but was renamed in 1918. It was named after the Frenchman Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac, an adventurer and visionary who in 1688 by the governor of New France a piece of land in Acadia (now Maine ), including Mount Desert Iceland received in order, but in vain, to build a Seigneurie there.

Between 1883 and 1890 drove the Green Mountain Railway, a rack railway to the summit of Cadillac Mountain, bringing passengers to the local Green Mountain Hotel. The distance was 1.83 km long, leading from Bar Harbor, the largest town of the island, to the hotel, but was decommissioned in 1890. The hotel burned down in 1895 and was not rebuilt. Since 1931 leads a 6 km long asphalt road in many turns on the mountain, but also several hiking trails to a summit ascent, of which one has a spectacular view of the National Park and the many surrounding islands. A very special game type are the sunrises, where often several hundred onlookers gathered at the summit to see the first rays of the nation.