Acadia National Park

I haven't blogged in a week because I was on vacation to Acadia National Park. Acadia was one of 10 most wanted places to vacation in the country. It also has the advantage of being only a six hour drive so it would be a cheap vacation.   DJ, Amber and I went from Thursday until Thursday.  Rather than give you a day by day replay and write 4000 words, I'll just tell you about the park.

Overview:

Acadia is on Mount Desert Island. It took 6 hours to get to and I live on the Rhode Island/ MA border. Its about 90 minutes from  Bangor ( the closest interstate exit). The National Park is about 40,000 acres. It does not take up the whole island. There is some private land mixed in along with some towns, the most famous being Bar Harbor.  The National Park is really an outdoors persons paradise. There is a wide variety of landscapes. The ocean shoreline makes for dramatic scenery. There is deep woods and bald mountain tops. Streams and mountain lakes are common. It is really impossible to get bored. There is such a wide variety of things to do. Just to name a few things hiking, biking, fishing, tidepooling, sight seeing, scenic drives, kayaking, ranger programs, picnicing, bird watching, photography, and whale watching. I'm sure there are many more.

Hiking

Hiking is great in this national park. Almost all of the summits are bare. Its nice to climb a mountain and get a 360 degree view. Also none of the " mountains" are that high. The highest point is only about 1500 feet. We did three hikes.

The first was over two mountains, North and South Bubble. South Bubble is home of Bubble Rock a glacial erratic. A glacial erratic is a rock that was brought from one place to a another by a glacier. Bubble Rock is the size of a living room and it balances at the top of a mountain.

He hiked the Gorham Mountain Trail to the top of Gorham mountain. On this trail were caves and cliffs. The scenery at the top was impressive looking over the ocean.

On our last day we hiked over four mountains. It was a 5.5 mile loop. We hiked about 1500 verical feet. It was cloudy and drizzly. The pictures were dreary, but we could see in all directions from the four summits and the views were awesome, if a little grey.

Bike Riding

Cobblestone Bridge on a Carrige Road

When the park was formed, John D. Rockerfeller Jr. Designed and paid for carrige roads. He did not want the scenery ruined by car noise and fumes. So he designed these carrige roads for horses and hiking. Now they can also be used by bikers. They are made of gravel and really well maintained. We did a couple of bike rides on them. Most of the time our destination would be bridges.

Rockerfeller built a series of bridges along the roads. They are all unique and beautifully designed.  We tried to see them all, but missed two. Along the carrige roads, Amber took a steep curve to sharply and skinned her knee pretty bad. They were steeper than expected so after a couple rides we left the bikes at the campground and hoofed it.

Tidepooling

Tide pooling was my favorite thing to do. We went three times. We took a walk on the Ship Harbor trail to the water. This wasn't really a tide pool, but I did find some sea urchin shells so I'm counting it. A half mile away is Wonder land ( 2 words) I had tide pools but most of the higher ones were picked over by  tourist. DJ and I walked down to the slippery rock weed. We didn't find to much intesting. We did see a bald eagle fly by. Amber and I saw a starfish but it was found by another group.

The next morning at low tide we walked the 1/3 mile out to Bar Island. This is an island at high tide, but at low tide it is connected to a sandbar to the mainland. On our way back from the island, we walked in the water. We found tons of starfish and a few live sea urchins.  Fun has had by all.

Ranger Programs

We went on four programs and two campground programs. We went to the Missing Mansion which was atalk about George Dorr the person that got the park started. We did a summit talk at the top of Cadillac Mtn on a cloudy day. We also listened to a talk on Botany Basics. At the campground we saw a presentation for taking better pictures and listeneing to sounds. The sound program was one of the funniest things I have ever seen. The ranger was like a stand up comic and I laughed for almost the whole hour.  Also we went to Sand Beach at 9:30 pm to listen to a talk about stars. It was mostly cloudy so we didn't see many but the International Space Station came by and we saw that. Awesome!

Animal sightings

Acadia is a birders dream place. With all the different ecosystems there are birds everywhere. We kind of ran out of time and did little actual birding. We did see a Black Throated Green Warbler. We saw 4 bald eagles all while doing other things. We saw 8 deer including some bucks. Toads, frogs and tadpoles along with leeches at the waters edge. At the ocean we saw the forementioned starfish and sea urchins. While walking to the ocean we saw a red rellied snake. That was a new snake for me. I picked it up and it secreted a disgusting smelling liquid on me ( defense mechinism).

Wrap up

Most of our time was spent doing the above things. It did rain most every day, but there were windows to get out and do something each of those days. No I did not do any fishing We ate popovers at Jordan Pond House, ate ice cream at Bar Harbor and he went out to eat at a BBQ place because the kids would rather eat BBQ than lobster.



Bubble Rock

Amber especially had a great time. She had never really hiked. She loves animals and enjoyed all the programs. She becme a junior ranger, by completing activities in a book, interviewing a ranger and going on a program. She is very proud of her Jr. Ranger Patch and certificate.

In my opinion the scenery is not "spectacular" Two hundred foot ocean cliffs do not rival the Grand Tetons or Zion Canyon. However, everywhere you looked there was always another great photo op. The scenery may not have been mind blowing, but it was beautiful and varied.  The bridges were photogenic. The cliffs and mountain tops were pretty. Many little brooks made for great pictures.