We were expecting crowds in Acadia National Park!

We are way behind in getting travel posts published this summer because we're having too much fun traveling! So we won't be confused about when each "wandering" happened, we'll start each blog with its actual date.

August 16, 2022

We have read that Acadia National Park is one of the busiest parks in the national park system. In fact, over four million people will visit this year. Since we were here during the height of the vacation season, we were expecting crowds--and we got what we expected! We were in the park until late last night, and we are back early this morning to avoid the crowds. We were up at 5:00 a.m. to make the drive into the park. We pulled into a front row parking spot at Sandy Beach, and we were on the very rocky Bee Hive Trail before 6:00 a.m.

It is a steep trail, and we were up high enough to get views of the ocean and the sky lighting up with the colors of sunrise.

We were so glad that we made the effort to get here early, because we got these magical views all to ourselves. We had read that this very popular trail will be very crowded in the middle of the day. It was described as looking like a trail of ants making their way up the mountain because so many people would be in a constant line to the summit.

The Beehive Trail is our warm-up trail. We had planned to hike up "The Precipice Trail," but the reviews were a little unnerving to Denisa (not to Mark). So we agreed on this challenging--but not death-defying--trail this morning. The Beehive Trail includes some metal footings that bridge the narrow rock ledges.

The Beehive Trail also has iron bars drilled into the mountain that provide foot and hand holds when going straight up the face of the mountain.

As we climbed more ladders and got higher, the views got even better! We have wandered into another of God's wonders!

Sometimes the side of the mountain was carved into nice rock stairways . . .

and narrow ledges. We are now high above the beaches of Acadia National Park.

When the ledges got narrower and the ladders higher, it was nice that we didn't have people right in front and behind us for this hike. Have we mentioned that we were glad that we got up so early this morning?

You might notice that the pictures are mostly of Denisa this morning. That's because she is busy hanging on to the side of the mountain, while Mark is leaning out to take these pictures.

Our plan today was to take the Beehive Trail to the top of this mountain, and then make a loop down on another trail. That should be 1.6 miles total, with an elevation gain of 560 feet. We're almost to the top of that elevation gain now.

At the top, we sat and admired the Acadia National Park shore line.

We took a picture of the summit post at the top of Beehive. It's only 560 feet above sea level. This morning we parked the pickup and walked from the beach--right at sea level.

From this summit we can see more of the islands that surround the Maine coastline.

We started our descent from the top, and our planned loop took us to the clear water of Bowl Lake. But that's when our plan changed. After having the trail to ourselves, another family caught up with us at the lake. They were planning to make a bigger loop that includes another summit. 

Suddenly, we found ourselves leaving Bowl Lake and heading up on the South Ridge Trail instead of down. What?!? We've enjoyed our hike so much this morning that we didn't want it to be over. (This sounds a little familiar to last night when we decided to make our lovely bike ride longer without checking out the trail. Do you wonder if this story is going to end the same way?) Besides, in just 1.6 more miles, we can hike to the top of Champlain Mountain for even better views. It's just the middle of August, but we are beginning to see some leaves changing to their fall colors here in the higher elevations of coastal Maine.

We also found some trail snacks, so Denisa enjoyed some blueberries for the hike up.

It wasn't long before we were looking down on Bowl Lake, and seeing the Atlantic Ocean from a view further away.

On this rocky section of the hike, we were guided by rock cairns like we have used in many hikes. But these are unique. Most hiking cairns are made by a single tower of rocks. But the ones on this trail were built over 100 years ago by Waldron Bates. In 1896, Mr. Bates authored the trail map still used here in Acadia. He used the same configuration for all his rock cairns--two base columns of rock with a platform stone across them, and a single pointer stone on top pointing the way to hike.  

Once we knew that they had a long history, it was fun to find the Bates cairns in the slick rock sections of the hike.

Around 9:00, we made it to the summit of Champlain Mountain for the tallest views of the day. These are also the busiest views, as several different trails come together at this point. One of those is the Precipice Trail, so we can see people that have just made their way up the toughest hike in Acadia National Park. We've read that it is just like the Beehive with its ladders and ledges--just longer. Now we're planning to try it on another day.

We took a picture of the summit sign to prove we made it 1,058 feet above sea level. The sign also points towards our way down on the North Ridge Trail. This is when it would have been nice to have done more research on this longer loop. It was one mile straight down on a very steep slick rock trail where it joined to the national park road. But then we didn't want to hike two more miles along that busy paved road to get back to the pickup. So we extended our hike another 2.6 miles on the Schooner Trail through the woods. We didn't take any pictures of this longer-than-planned return hike to the pickup because we were running low on water and hurrying to get back.

When we finally got back to Sandy Beach, Denisa couldn't wait to take off her hiking boots and dip her toes into the ocean! We made some critical mistakes on this beautiful hike today. Thinking we were only going 1.6 miles, we didn't have enough water when we stretched it to over 6 miles. Also, Denisa wore a new pair of hiking boots because it seemed a good time to break them in on a short hike. She found out she had two blisters by the time she got back to the ocean. The other mistake was not understanding our options in this national park. We knew about the free Explorer buses that are available to visitors. In fact, we had looked to see if there was a bus stop on our route back. But we didn't understand that park visitors could wave the buses down anywhere along the road. They will stop as long as they have empty spots in the bus. That would have saved us that blister-causing-dehydrating-boring-two-mile-walk-through-the-woods at the end of the hike. After our mistakes on last night's bike ride, you would think that we were rookies at this national park trail thing!

You can't see it in the pictures, but we were entertained by a seal off the shore of Sandy Beach. We were also entertained by the large group of people that were here at 11:00 to enjoy the best patch of sand and ocean at Acadia.

From the beach we could see the Beehive Mountain that we had climbed first thing this morning.

After changing shoes and drinking lots of water, we were ready to do some more exploring. We got our first look at just how crowded Acadia National Park can be on a beautiful summer afternoon. This is a two-lane road, but at this time of the year the second lane becomes miles of parking spots. Cars were parked along the road for as far as we could see. So we decided to leave our pickup in its coveted parking spot at Sandy Beach and walk to the next point of interest.

While we enjoyed the Beehive Trail all to ourselves, the Ocean Trail along that road was full of hikers. Walking with shoulder-to-shoulder hikers beside bumper-to-humper traffic that is driving beside bumper-to-bumper parked cars isn't our idea of getting back to nature in a national park! We were expecting crowds in Acadia National Park, and we got them!

We walked a mile to one of the most-visited points of interest at the park--Thunder Hole. This is a rock inlet where the waves may crash against the rocky shore spraying salt water high in the air with a thundering blast--in the right conditions. We had relatively low tide and calm waters, so there was no thunder at thunder hole. But still, crowds of people were here to see it. You can see Denisa in her bright pink blouse, with the other visitors viewing the inlet from the proper viewing platform.

Then there are visitors like Mark that climb up the rocks to see the inlet from a different perspective.

He didn't have to cross any fences or warning signs, but few people will climb to that ledge.

Since we made the long walk, we spent some time at the rocky shore, looking out over the calm Atlantic Ocean this afternoon. Then we made the one-mile crowded walk back to our front row parking spot at Sandy Beach. Cars were circling the parking lot hoping for a space to open up. We motioned to a family coming into the lot that we were leaving, and they stopped to let us back out. As they pulled into that great parking spot, they yelled out their car window, "We love you!" That's how important finding a parking spot is at Acadia in the summer.

We would experience that parking frustration for ourselves as we continued through the park. It's a one-way road through this most visited portion of the park, so we had no alternative but to turn left out of the Sandy Beach parking lot to complete the rest of the 27-mile loop road in the national park. We decided that it would be fun to stop at Jordan Pond. That's when we got to see the slow-moving train of cars inching through the parking lot--each one hoping for a parking spot.

We were ready to just get out of this frustratingly crowded place, when a parking spot opened up in front of us. We wheeled into it and made the long walk to the Jordan Pond House. We got on a waiting list for a table. The much-sought-after outdoor tables with a view of Jordan Pond had an expected wait time of over an hour.

So we opted for an indoor table that took a mere 45-minute wait. We were seated and ordered a snack--the famous Jordan House specialty--popovers with butter and strawberry jam. 

This snack of popovers was just what a couple of hungry hikers needed to carry them over to the real meal of the day. We drove out of Acadia National Park, and just over the bridge is a well-reviewed lobster shack--the Trenton Bridge Lobster Pound.

The only thing on the menu is lobster. You go inside to pick a lobster from the live ones that came out of the ocean that morning. We found they vary in price from soft shell lobster for $11.99 per pound, hard shell lobster for $13.99 per pound, and very large hard shell for $18.99 per pound. That's a pretty good mark-up from the $3 per pound that a lobster fisherman told us they were getting paid. At the counter they marked our lobster with our number, then brought it outside where they had large vats of boiling ocean water to cook it.

We watched as they brought lobster #4 out of the water a few minutes later.

We ordered the dinner option, so they added corn on the cob, cole slaw, rolls, and butter to our 1.8 pound lobster. That cost us $32 for our first fresh lobster meal of the summer. We are inexperienced at eating a whole lobster, so we had to watch a you-tube video to know about the correct methods of using the strange eating instruments provided. We're not great fans of lobster, but we have now fulfilled our duty of eating fresh lobster right on the coast of Maine.

As we looked back over our day, we can't say that we were sad to leave the national park when we drove out of the gate near the Hulls Cove Visitor Center. We had been inside the park for nine hours, so we were tired by 3:00 p.m. While we had a great early morning hike, the crowds of the afternoon were frustrating. Our advice is to go early or late, but avoid the throng of people visiting in the middle of the day. We were expecting crowds in Acadia National Park, and we definitely got them today.