Acadia National Park, ME (9/23/17)

The land of ports was nice but it’s time to continue on to my next Maine destinations: Bar Harbor and Acadia National Park!

Some highlights:

• Beautiful nature and amazing views all around
• Extremely nice and friendly people
• Best ROI hike ever (Bubble Rock)
• Best mountain sunset (Cadillac Mountain)
• Best swordfish tacos (Peekytoe Provisions)
• Best crab cakes (Side Street Cafe)

Bar Harbor

I drove in from Portland on Friday night. After crashing with my friend Sepehr in Boston’s suburb of Brookline, I felt very much at home staying in my Airbnb in Brooklin. Drove into town on Saturday morning and grabbed some water (and some lunch) at the Thirsty Whale in downtown Bar Harbor. The clam chowder was p good and so was the fried haddock sandwich! Full of seafood, I checked out the downtown area and the waterfront, which were very scenic. Bar Harbor is a p small town so I was able to cover (on foot) a good amount of it in an hour or so.

Photos

Acadia National Park

After spending half of my Saturday afternoon exploring Bar Harbor I made my way to Acadia National Park. The park has a nice loop road (Park Loop Rd) that, as expected, takes you in a nice loop around the park. There are various scenic spots off the road so it’s easy to do some quality exploring while driving. This paradigm of driving and pulling over to take scenic photos will be a recurring theme throughout my trip!

I started on the Northeast side and drove down the coast and then back up through the middle of the park past Jordan pond. About an hour before sunset I arrived at the start of the Bubble Rock trail which was a short hike up a mountain, and decided to take my chances to make it back before I was in the dark. The easy hike ended up having perhaps the best return on investment (ROI) of any activity I had ever done – the views from the top were stunning. At the Bubble Rock overlook I also met a very nice retired couple that has been spending their summers in Maine for past 37 years. If I ever get a job again I will definitely start thinking about my own regular Maine trips.

After the nice sunset hike I tried to go to the Star Party on Cadillac Mountain, which was a star gazing event part of the annual Acadia Night Sky Festival. Unfortunately I only got there on time, at which point the mountain was filled to capacity. Sad and hungry, I went to Side Street Cafe and ordered a clam chowder and a double hamburger, not realizing that each patty was half a pound. Barely able to finish 3/4 of a burger (3/4 * 1/2 * 2 = 3/4 lbs of meat) I drove back home to Brooklin.

What a scenic Saturday! Sunday was no less exciting. I drove to Acadia from Brooklin and stopped for lunch at Peekytoe Provisions in Bar Harbor. There I had some swordfish tacos and a lobster roll (gotta try ’em all), which were both delicious. I then once again followed the loop of Park Loop Rd to cover some of the spots I didn’t see the previous day. After stopping a couple of times for scenic photos I arrived at the Beehive trailhead ready to take on the mountain.

The Beehive trail was recommended to me by a very athletic Polish family I met the previous day while searching for the Bubble Rock trailhead. They described it as really fun but did not make it sound like it was a walk in the park. The first part of the trail was a relatively easy uphill boulder scramble, but after completing that I was greeted by a rather menacing warning sign:

Despite my acute fear of heights I decided to ignore the warning and proceed. In retrospect I should have listened more closely to the Polish family as I quickly found myself on the edge of a cliff and facing a vertical climb:

Needless to say I did not reach the Beehive summit to discover what treasures/honey lie there, but I did discover a gem of a view on the way:

After a semi-successful trip to the Beehive I decided to hike the Great Head trail, which seemed more manageable.

The hike turned out to be fantastic and had some great views of the coastline and beaches. Tired and sweaty I drove over to the Asticou Azalea Japanese garden to relax.

After finding peace in the garden it was time to find the sunset so I drove up to Cadillac Mountain. Unsurprisingly it was a popular spot around this time but I was nonetheless able to capture some nice photos mostly without tourists in the way.

After the sunset I stayed on the mountain to do some solo star gazing which was as romantic as it sounds! On the way back I grabbed some crab cakes for dinner at Side Street Cafe. Delicious.

And that’s it for Maine! I’d highly recommend Acadia National Park if you get a chance to go, it’s a magical place with incredible views. Next stop, Nova Scotia!