3rd Anniversary Trip: Bar Harbor, ME & Acadia National Park

Yes, this blog post is a little late, but I haven't had much time recently to go through all the photos, upload them, and write. Now, here I am!
For our anniversary this year J and I flew in to Baltimore, then Portland, ME, then stayed in Harpswell, ME, before driving up to Bar Harbor and spending two nights there at a B&B and spending a full day hiking a little over nine miles in Acadia National Park.
Nine miles may not be our best day of hiking but when you consider some of the trail we covered I was impressed. :) Look below for a travelogue.

J and I at BWI. It had been a while, to say the least. We moved from Baltimore to Chicago shortly after I left training in November of 2011. It felt good to be back. J and I had both just worked the night before and by the time we packed, did laundry, and left again we were barely home for eight hours. We are excited to grab some food and go to sleep.

Speaking of grabbing food, how romantic is Chili's? A ton of chips and giant margaritas?! :)

J and I landed in Portland, sat around for a few hours trying some local brews, and then headed to pick up our car and drive to Harpswell, ME where we were staying at a place we found on AirBnB. It was on the very end of a finger of the Maine coast, and our walk brought us by beautiful, shell-covered beaches.

View from the very end of the coastal finger.

After dinner at the only restaurant nearby, J and I walked back through town, checking out this pier.

(C) JJ, Boats in the harbor.

Panoramic shot of the finger of land.

When we came back from dinner we grabbed ourselves a snack of pretzels and almonds that our hosts had left for us, as well as the large Stella that was in our little fridge. Our hosts were so sweet and kind and the view from the front porch was priceless.

As the sun set.

The next day we drove the long way to Bar Harbor: a long the coast and through the small towns. It was a gorgeous drive. When we arrived at Bar Harbor it was too early to check in to out B&B but not too early to grab lunch and explore, which we did. One of the first things we saw was the famous Maine blueberry. Lunch was at the Finback Alehouse with fish and chips and fish tacos. So good we decided to go back for dinner after our hiking the next day.

Around town I made a giant friend.

Rocks worn smooth by the water.

The same smooth rocks as above are towards the water's edge. Everything else was still...rocky. This was a long the Bar Harbor Shore Path.

One of the storefronts in downtown Bar Harbor.

After making ourselves comfortable at the B&B and enjoying tea and cookies, we headed out to McKay's Public House for dinner. We had scoped this out on our earlier walk and they had vegetarian options (which I was looking for after my gigantic fish 'n' chips) and healthy options for J.

The next morning it was breakfast time and after feeding ourselves we set out on our ambitious quest around Acadia National Park. Starting with Precipice Trail. We did get very far on that trail as it had rained that morning, I was not a fan of how slick the rock was for a hike known for its heights, and so we decided to move on to the Sand Beach and hike Great Head. In retrospect it was a good decision because we may not have decided to do the last hike we did that day if we had started on Precipice, and the last hike (to be announced) was my favorite.

The Great Head hike was lush and smelled earthy after all the rain of the morning. It overlooked beautiful expanses of the ocean as well.

Rain drops.

View from Great Head. The Great Head trail deposited us back at the Sand Beach and we decided to check out Thunderhole from there (known for the giant waves that come crashing in). We learned that Thunderhole would be best viewed at high tide so we decided to come back after our next hike: Gorham Mountain Trail to The Bowl to The Beehive.

Gorham Mountain Trail. You best be ready to scramble if the trail name had the word "cliffs" in it.

Almost the top of Gorham.

Our little diversion to The Bowl, a gorgeous lake between Gorham and Champlain.

J towards the top of Beehive. Great Head and the Sand Beach are seen in the background.

So, apparently, one does not simply hike *down* The Beehive. We did not know that. Unless we wanted to come back the way we came, we were going to have to climb down The Beehive to where are car was (just .2 miles away, but several hundreds of feet).

Let's get to it. (Or as J would say, "Don't look down.") (C) JJ

He said: don't look down. (C) JJ

J making his attempt at being graceful and not plummeting to his death. This would, in retrospect, be good practice for the last trail we had chosen to do.

We made it to the bottom! Looking back up at the Beehive.

Back at Thunderhole, and high tide, there was nothing much going on. And we were gluttons for punishment. It was off to Jordan pond and the Jordan Cliffs with goals of summiting Sergeant Mountain. 

View of Jordan Pond from the busy and easy Nature Path.

Ah! Now we are getting somewhere...but how come we see absolutely no one else on the trail with us?

Oh, because that's the trail. Time to scramble.

There were some pretty cool innovations along the route. Mostly because it was not simple terrain over which to hike.

Me climbing up some Boulders using the installed rungs. (C) JJ

That's a drop, folks. (C) JJ

Our view from our tiny little trail. Our backs are against the mountain. There wasn't much shimmy room. Actually at one rung and bar part I had to take off my small mountain bike Camelbak and toss it up ahead of me so I could squeeze through and leverage closer to the mountain. Being short makes this stuff a bit more difficult.

Once we completed Jordan Cliffs we decided that we were not going to continue the .8 miles or so to the top of Sergeant. Mostly because, to be honest, we were both having some knee pain. So we headed back down and the trail took us around this beautiful, stone carriage-road. 

Me at the carriage road. (C) JJ

Back in the lush forest. (C) JJ

Those are the cliffs we scrambled across. Hard to tell with the sun set working it's way gorgeously behind said cliffs. This was taken from the east side of the Jordan Pond Trail (which is a loop).

The top of Cadillac Mountain, the highest point in the park. We did drive it because there was no way we were going to hike up it. One can see all the little islands dotting the water.

Believe it or not we made it back to our B&B in time for tea and cake, showers, and our much, much, much deserved dinner at Finback Alehouse. Lobster and Crab Mac & Cheese and Mediterranean Lobster. With some Maine blueberry pie a la mode (and a la whipped cream) for dessert.

J and I spotted this little coffee house (and Internet bar) across the street from the Finback and it looked so cool and fun with it's completely open architecture that we decided we'd have an after dinner coffee or tea there. It was called the Opera House and we had a fabulous rest there and sat looking out towards the street and people watching.

On our walk back through town this evening we saw this fountain sculpture, which reminded us so much of all the bars and rungs we had climbed to make it over the boulders and rock in the park.

Main Street, Bar Harbor.

A fountain in the park.

Back at our B&B it was time for a celebratory nightcap. Or a whole bottle of champagne. Don't judge, it's our anniversary...trip! (The actual day wasn't for another two days...but any excuse to celebrate!)

The next morning we walked off breakfast by taking West Street down to the harbor and enjoying the nice, salty air of Bar Harbor one more time.

That's it for Bar Harbor, but not the end of our trip. We left Bar Harbor to drive to Portland, ME where we stayed at a hotel there and enjoyed a fancy dinner out and some lovely gelato after. The next day we were off first thing in the morning to catch a flight back to BWI that had us in by 7:30 in the morning. We didn't head straight back to Denver, though, as we were excited to explore our old, temporary home. More in the next post!

Note: Something we didn't have a chance to do because we learned about it too late was to walk at low tide out to Bar Island. There is actually a trail across a sand bar and we could have easily walked there from our B&B. Next time!