Weeren the World Am I

The summary 

While I did a fair amount of hiking, Acadia is absolutely accessible to multiple skill levels. So go out and do what works for you!

Was the park crazy crowded? Not at all! It is summer, so I absolutely saw others especially on the more popular trails, but I felt like I had ample moments of privacy as well.

That said, remember to leave no trace as much as possible (take your trash with you) to help out park rangers. (And avoid doing dumb things to help yourself.)

Hikes/ Attractions

Sea Kayaking to Fort Gorges, 10/10

Coastal Maine botanical gardens + Trolls, 20/10

Boothbay, 9/10

Puffin tour out of Boothbay, 30/10, but I got lucky here

Bar Harbor Trail, 8/10

Beech Cliffs (1.6 miles, 485 ft elevation gain), 10/10

Beehive, the Bowl, Gorham Mountain, Ocean drive loop(5.6 miles, 951 elevation gain), Beehive 10/10. Gorham Mountain 8/10. Ocean drive loop 6/10.

Jorden Pond House- maybe not worth the prices for a full sit down meal. But if you can get there in time for the takeout window it’s worth trying to say you did. 4/10

Jorden Pond trail (3.3 miles, no notable elevation gain) 10/10. Enjoyed this more then I thought I would.

Ladder+ cannon brook + cadililac south ridge loop up cadillac mountain. (4.7 miles, 1630ft elevation gain. 6:48 hrs approx.). Ladder so many stairs, 5/10. cannon brook tried to kill me 0/10, cadililac south ridge loop 9/10.

Bass Harbor Head Light Station 10/10, it was not crowded when I went maybe due to rain.

Ship Harbor Trail (1.4 miles, no noticeable elevation gain.) 10/10

Puffin tour out of Bar Harbor 5/10

Bar Harbor, 8/10

Witch pond, carriage road (7.8 miles), in fairness this is a lovely trail, so the low rating is more for my struggle then the trail itself 4/10 (but also it should have water options.)

Elevenses (Lord of the Rings Cafe), 7/10 mainly for the crowd. Try to avoid weekend mornings if you can

Androscoggin swinging bridge. 4/10 not well marked, not much too it.

Portland Head Light(house) in Fort Williams Park 6/10

Bite into Maine food truck, 10/10 best lobster of the trip, well worth the wait 

Bug Light Park 6/10

Spring Point Ledge Lighthouse 9/10

The good

-Shout out to the Highbrook Motel where I stayed in Bar Harbor for the fantastic blueberry scones!

-Boothbay puffin tour! <- again I got really lucky, but I also enjoyed the on-board bird expert a lot.

-Boothbay in general - a very cute little coastal town

-Sea Kayaking to Fort Gorges, I’m spoiled for sea kayaking now, nothing will beat setting off into the unknown of the pea soup fog.

-Trolls! 

- Acadia in general

The bad

- crab roll, not worth it.

- cannon brook trail <- slimy!

-the cost to rent the car

- I do wish Acadia had slightly more bathroom facilities. The ones they had were clean and well maintained, but somewhat spaced out.

if I did this trip again I’d try to find more to see /plan stops better in between Portland and Bar Harbor.

Overall a good trip, it did lack some of the super highs of other recent trips, but it also lacked any super lows. And the goal of puffins, lighthouses, trolls and hikes was very much achieved.

Souvenir pic!

And cats

From here I had a little time left so I used it to visit 2 more lighthouses

Bug Light Park <- which was quite small

And the nearby Spring Point Ledge Lighthouse

(both were popular sites for nearby weddings!)

I liked Spring Point Ledge Lighthouse the best as it had a long stretch of rocks leading to it which were just uneven /spaced enough you had to kinda jump from one to another in a way that made it really fun.

Also shout out to the dad joke of “You can touch the lighthouse, but just once.”

Then it was time to head home!

I did get a final airport treat of a potato based donut from a vending machine- a supposed Maine specialty.

It just tasted like a regular donut, but it was a bit sad I had to wait for it to thaw/reach room temperature before I ate it according to the instructions (what if I’d been hungry then?)

From there it was back to Portland and Portland Head Light(house) in Fort Williams Park. This is apparently one of the most photographed lighthouses in the world, and it was certainly one of the more accessible ones in Maine.

Outside of the lighthouse the park had less than I expected - the small trails leading to the lighthouse were nice, but most else of what was nearby were big fields (although there’s more if you walk for a while). So I used the extra time to wait in line again for food, this time at the Bite into Maine food truck.

This is the place Somebody Feed Phill and quite a few other food shows have visited!

Although it might have been a better comparison to get one of the plain lobster rolls, I opted for the curry one. It was soo good!

A nice light yellow curry not a spicy one that went REALLY well with the lobster.

I then stopped briefly at Androscoggin swinging bridge.

Although it’s really less a swinging bridge and more a bouncing bridge. 

The next morning I got up to pack, then headed to Elevenses, a Lord Of The Rings cafe!

(I actually did not know about this when planning my trip and was delighted to find it the night before!)

The decorations were impeccable but this was Saturday morning and the line was LONG. On the plus side once I got food it was pretty good. French toast +  (early) gray wizard latte + a scone for later

On the dive back towards Portland I did stop at one of the lobster places

Although having had a good amount of lobster already I got a crab roll instead- this was a mistake as it was very boring (think the shredded crab salad that comes with sushi but with less flavor) but the atmosphere was lovely.

I also got a bin of roadside wild blueberries for the drive which I had not a chance of eating all of but I ate enough to turn my tongue purple.

Coming to Acadia I took the lower coastal route, but going back towards Portland I took the northern route.

Honestly I preferred the lower route as it felt like there were generally more interesting stops along it.

I had the great joy of re-listening to the very atmospheric Sleepaway episodes of the one-shot podcast on the way back which fit wonderfully well with the sunset/dusk/deep woods atmosphere of the drive. (especially when I accidentally ended up on a more rural side road for the last few miles.)

Back on land I head to Bar Harbor Bikes.

I’ve got a half day bike rental to check out the carriage roads.

The carriage roads were originally what they sounded like: roads for carriages which took a scenic route though the park. They cover an impressive 45 miles, are about 16 feet wide, and open to horses, pedestrians, and bikers today. They make for a clearly marked way to get around the park without cars (although I’m not sure how well they line up with any of the hiking trails.)

They are still lined with granite stones as guardrails - which are nicknamed Rockefeller's teeth”.

Now I bike a fair amount at home and consider myself in at least okay shape. But here, more than hiking where I expect to be slow since I don’t normally walk up mountains I was FEELING the lack of oxygen at the higher elevation.

The incline combined with the gravel texture of the roads did not help. The gravel made it especially hard to get going again once you lost momentum which was easy to do when you kept having to stop to gasp for air.

I did get to see a giant mushroom on a stump and a beaver din.

As it was I only ended up completing the easy route + optional sections of the route, around witch pond.

Aprox 7.8 miles on a bike, in around 2 hours. (that seems long in terms of distance though)

In theory I still had the bike for several hours, but I decided I was done suffering and wanted ice cream. The trails were nice but I was struggling. I also probably should have asked for a bigger bike since I’m used to a larger one at home.

Gravel tires might also have helped but I don’t think they had a 1/2 day option.

I also did NOT have enough water to keep going.

Word of warning, although there is a bathroom marked on the Witch pond trail it is just a porter potty- there is NO sink/water source there!

 The lady at the bike shop was very kind about the struggle with the elevation at least when I returned the bike. I am far from the only one to run into this problem.

Also the soft serve blueberry ice cream was the best of the tip!

(heads up the place that serves it is cash only.)

We also passed a few lighthouses and a bald eagle nest!

One note on puffin (and probably also similar cruises) you want to get there EARLY for the best shot at a good seat.

I got there somewhat early and got okay seats each time.

Different boats also have different seating arraignments- I was able to sit most of the time on the 1st cruise, but was up and about for most of the 2nd one, since it had seats near the middle and I felt better near the edge of the boat where I could better see the horizon.

The next morning I’m up early for another puffin tour

This one I did not get as lucky on- which made me really appreciate how many puffins I saw on the 1st tour.

It also went to a different puffin colony- Egg Rock. (distinct from eastern egg rock.)

As an oddity- there seems to be a tufted puffin that has attached itself to this colony.

Most puffins here are Atlantic puffins, while tufted puffins are usually in the Pacific. Reachers are confused as to how this happened, as is the puffin I imagine. But he seems to have found a temporary home with the local puffins for now.

Weirdly I MIGHT have gotten a picture of him? Its very blurry, but those look like they could be tuffs?

While we did not see as many puffins, I did remember to charge my camera instead of just my phone so I had a slightly better zoom. Fortunate since the boat made a point of passing other wildlife like this colony of seals.

Ship Harbor Trail

I also liked this trail because it had a neat place where the water from the ocean and the lake ran into one another.

(I should have totally stopped to get a better picture of this sunset on the drive back!)

Then it was back to Bar Harbor for dinner. Fish and chips at Leary's Landing Irish Pub, which were quite good.

Got to spend some time shopping for shirts (I spent far too much but I have a lot of puffin shirts now so I’m very happy)

I also got to stop by one of the ice cream places where I sampled the lobster ice cream. It did taste like lobster ice cream.

It is also interestingly the only flavor the shop will give a sample of in the evening (all the others have a cut off time, but they recognize people have to know.)

I did get the blueberry ice cream in a cup.

With limited daylight left I finished off the day with 1 small trail, which ended up being one of my favorites on the trip- in part to finally having the cooler weather I’d been hoping for.

Ship Harbor Trail

1.4 miles, no noticeable elevation gain.

It does loop over itself in places which is fun because you get to choose which order you see the trail in.

After that refresh, I decided to drive out to Bass Harbor Head Light Station at this point it FINALLY started getting nicely misty/overcast.

While parking here is limited I got lucky and it was not crowded.

You can walk up to the lighthouse if you take the higher path, or you can go down the lower path and scramble over rocks for an ocean adjacent view.

Ladder+ cannon brook + Cadillac south ridge loop

It’s worth noting there are multiple routes to get down from Cadillac, some of which are not advised in wet conditions due to how slippery the rocks get.

This did necessitate being carful in a few places going down the south ridge, but nothing too bad since it was a very light rain/mist at best.

However all that changed when I got to the cannon brook section of the trail.

It started innocently enough, nice and forested which was a nice break at this point from the sparser biome of the ridge.

But eventually the trail reached a flat rocky section which was open to the rain and also had been exposed to a creek- which made for a lot of wet algae on a fairly steep slope.

You can see where this is going.

Despite my good hiking boots, it was slippery!

After falling even while taking tiny penguin like steps I decided to surrender to the inevitable and slid on my butt for what must have been a good half mile. 

Fortunately the rocks were broken up enough you never slid for too long, which let me pause and adjust direction periodically, and I was able to control rate of decent as well since it wasn’t crazy steep.

Which was all very good because at one point part of the rocks dropped away for where there would be a waterfall if it had been wetter.

At another point one of the sections of continuous algae was taller than I was.

Not a ton of pics of the slippery section as I was busy not endangering myself.

Finally I reached stairs again, which had enough tree cover as to not be slippery. They were quite big cuts of stone however. Eventually it flattened out to a quiet section of forest. It was interesting to see how in places the younger scragglier saplings had started to form tunnels.

Ladder+ cannon brook + Cadillac south ridge loop

Cadillac mountain is one of the main mountains - and the only one you need timed reservations for if you choose to drive up. 

No timed reservation needed for hiking.

It is a bit crowded at the top of Cadillac with all the driving tourists, so if you drive I recommend walking a bit down for better pictures.

It was lightly misting/cool at the top, but I was sweating so much it was more a relief then anything.

Ladder+ cannon brook + Cadillac south ridge loop

Sooo many stairs.

Eventually the stairs do end.

You actually go up Door Mountain (or a ridge next to Door Mountain?) as the first mountain before going down it and then up Cadillac mountain.

On the way up I had the delight of meeting a dog that loved to eat blueberries, and had significantly less trouble climbing than I did.

I was also introduced to a huckleberry by her owners. Looks like a blueberry but is blacker and has a longer stem.