National Parks and Recreation

So. It’s been awhile. And it’s not that I haven’t done a lot of travelling in the past two years, I’ve just been crazy busy at work and not focused enough to update this here old blog. But here we are, in quarantine, with everything shut down and I’ve got nothing but time.

I know I especially have enjoyed going back over old travel photos during all of this so I hope you’d all like to see some of them too and make some mental notes for trips you can plan later in the year! Here’s what we’ve been up to these last couple of years:

I felt weird doing a second post about a park I had already gone to (my first park, actually!), but we live just 5 hours from Acadia and it has truly been one of my favorites so we’re trying to go back every year. Plus, we tried to do all new things the second time around!

Our biggest change was that we stayed right in the park this time at Blackwoods Campground. While driving Park Loop Drive was one of my favorite parts the first time around, I wanted to be able to leave the car behind and explore the park on foot for the most part.

The biggest perk of this was that our campsite was right at the trailhead for the South Ridge Trail of Cadillac Mountain. We had hiked Cadillac on our first trip, but we used the shorter and steeper North Ridge Trail and did it in the middle of the day in the pouring rain.

Needless to say, the view at the top left quite a bit to the imagination.

We did end up driving back up the mountain the next day when it was bright and sunny, but it feels like cheating unless you hike it.

Another great thing about Cadillac is that from the top, you are the first people to see the sun in the United States due to its altitude and geographic location. We swore on the last trip that the next time we came, we’d do the hike for sunrise. And it was by far my favorite part of the trip!

Alarms were set for 2:30am, headlamps were packed, hiking clothes were slept in, and we were on our way!

I was pretty nervous about night hiking (it was pitch black when we left), but my REI headlamps worked perfectly! I didn’t even have to put the brightness all the way up because it was such a clear night that the stars and moon helped brighten our way. There was also another couple a small distance behind us the entire way so that helped calm me down that we weren’t all alone if something were to happen.

The South Ridge was a much easier hike than the North Ridge, but the extra distance definitely added to the excitement as we were in a race against time to get to the top in time to see the sun peek up over the horizon.

But we made it! To a very windy peak. As we stopped moving and our sweat started to evaporate, it got quite cold. We found a rock to hide behind (from the wind, but also the hundreds of other people who had driven up the mountain instead of hiking and were blocking the view) and watched the sky explode.

It was breathtaking.

After a long time of watching the sun, our freezing bodies encouraged us to get up and start heading back down. It was really cool to finally be able to see the hike that we had just done, especially heading back down toward the ocean.

We made it back to the campsite, ate a giant breakfast, took a fantastic nap, and then headed back out on foot toward the cliffs near Thunder Rock.

As I said last time, climbing on the rocks on the ocean is my favorite thing to do. So we walked up the coast from our campsite, taking in the sights and demanding that James take my picture on top of every rock.

We made our way over to Sand Beach and did a quick stroll down Great Head Trail which was basically just a bunch of rocks to climb on. Heaven.

We then kept on walking up the road to hit up Beehive Trail again. I really want to do Precipice at some point, but we also seem to find ourselves there during peregrine falcon mating season. We’ll have to make a day trip in the fall! We loved Beehive so much from our first trip there though, that we knew we wanted to do it again.

Obviously not recommended for those with a fear of heights, but James is wary of heights and he still enjoyed it. It’s very thrilling and fun!

And the view from the top was very nice!

From there, we noticed that we could just continue right on to Gorham Mountain and it would take us toward our campsite so we decided to just keep this crazy day of hiking going! Below is a nice side view of Cadillac Mountain as seen from the Gorham Mountain trail. This is the South Ridge. The left of the picture is where our campsite was and you can see what we hiked up (through the dark) to the peak, on the right.

At this point we were pretty beat. We found some rocks in the sun and slept for a long time.

It was honestly the perfect day.

We did some other old favorites and new adventures during our three days there, including another lap around Jordan Pond.

And a hike up Acadia Mountain, where the sun came out as soon as we reached the peak to give us this amazing view.

Overall, a very successful second trip to Acadia. And I already can’t wait to go back this summer.

What you can’t miss:

1. Hiking South Ridge to Cadillac Mountain at sunrise
2. Beehive Trail
3. Park Loop Road

But I do have one more story.

James and I love puffins. Like really love puffins. I honestly don’t even remember where or how it started, but they fascinate us and we always send each other pictures of cute ones. We even have a stuffed animal puffin on our bed. So I did some research and decided that I could surprise James with a puffin watch cruise on our way back to Boston on our last day.

So he blindly let me drive him down to New Harbor, Maine to take a Hardy Boat Cruise. As we approached the ticket counter, the woman warned us that seas were a little rough today and we could exchange our ticket for the next day if we were prone to seasickness (James is). But we were heading back home that day and really couldn’t go back up. So I asked how bad it was. She said on a scale of 1-10, 10 meaning they wouldn’t bring us out, we were at about an 8. I was obviously game, so I left it up to James and he was down too!

So off we went! And we had been prepared for rough seas. But man was it ROUGH! Honestly, it was so rough that you couldn’t even get seasick because it wasn’t a gentle rocking, it was literal 10 feet drops on either side of the boat with every wave. The captain did his best to steer us into the waves to make it better, but it was still bad. This puppy was not having it.

Finally we made it to the island and circled for almost 20 minutes without seeing a single puffin. Right as we were about to head back with nothing but a good story, they started popping up everywhere! All I had was my wee iPhone and we still had to hold on for dear life so I didn’t get the best pictures. But here are the cuties that I did capture:

It was very worth it! But the extra time we spent out there made the ocean even rougher. We probably shouldn’t have even been out there at that point. At one point, waves crashed over the top deck of this 20 foot high boat. It was insane. Most people were good spirits about it and James and I were laughing maniacally the entire time. It was 100% worth the crazy experience AND we got to see our beloved puffins finally! I highly recommend Hardy Boat Tours. I know it sounds crazy, but I never felt unsafe and they did a great job.

And just look at those happy, soaked faces!

So that was our trip to Maine! I’m going to be posting a few more of the National Parks we have hit since I went on my long hiatus, as well as some other trips we’ve done, including a five day road trip around Ireland. I hope everyone is staying safe and healthy and that these pictures might help while stuck in your houses and apartments.