Greetings from Acadia National Park

With only two half days to spend during a spontaneous summer season trip, I wasn’t expecting much on my most recent visit to the rugged shorelines and beautiful coastal mountains of Acadia National Park. However, it’s not hard to fall in love in a place as mesmerizing as Acadia. The main joy of this trip was having one of my best friends getting to experience the magic of this place. He’s my main travel buddy to the national parks, and despite Acadia being a frequent destination for my family, he hadn’t visited yet. After a hectic but worthwhile adventure into Bar Harbor to get lunch and supplies, we made our basecamp at Blackwoods Campground. The campground doesn’t look like much at first glance, but its perfect location allows for so many great adventures. Walk one way, and you can go straight up to the highest point on the eastern United States seaboard, Cadillac Mountain. Walk another way and you will find yourself along the famous coastline of the park. Instead we spent our evening by driving to the Sand Beach area and hiking the Gorham Mountain Loop Trail. The hike offered great views of the Sand Beach area from above without having to endure the adrenaline rush that the rung and ladders of the neighboring Beehive Trail. We timed the hike perfectly as we emerged into Golden Hour on the descent. The sun enhanced hues really made the ocean landscape pop.

Our second day focused mostly on the classics of the park. We spent the morning walking the planks and dirt paths around Jordan Pond. I finally had my first loon sighting. It was a sight that surprisingly got me as excited as seeing some of the megafauna of the national parks of the west and south. Lunch was spent feasting on popovers and blueberry lemonade at Jordan Pond House and the afternoon was spent waiting in traffic before we got ourselves an up close look at the iconic Bass Harbor Head Lighthouse. However, it was the last thing we did in the park that will probably be the thing I remember most about this trip. Having covered most of the map in previous trips (one day I will get to you, Isle au Haut!) I’ve found that there really is no actual “quiet side” to the park during the summer months. The Schoodic Peninsula is a stunning place but you aren’t exactly escaping the crowds there. Yet quiet is what we found when we went to Pretty Marsh in the northwest corner of Mount Desert Island. A forested hill where you can picnic leads into a calm coastal shoreline where we were able to just soak in the scenery and let time slip away. Acadia may not be as large or get the hype of some of the other national parks in the country, but every day I spend there is a true gift.

Sincerely,
Ryan