Day 04 - Acadia NP Day 01

We went to 2Cats for breakfast at the recommendation from Michele’s coworker and local reviews. Jerry had the farmer’s feast breakfast, Rob had French toast, and Michele had the blueberry pancakes and fresh squeezed orange juice, both of which she reported, were the best she’s ever had.

Today was our first day in Acadia National Park! 

During breakfast we decided to do two trails, the Great Head Trail and the Beehive. The Great Head promised amazing views of the coastline and the Beehive was a double black diamond 5-star rated trail. Thinking we could take the shuttle in, we learned that the shuttle system would not start up for the season until this Thursday! Oops. Back on the bikes for us.

We drove in on a scenic road to a less busy entrance.

We got a parking spot in the Sand Beach parking lot, shed our biker gear and donned our hiking gear and spent a few minutes looking at the beach. We had a hard time finding the trailhead to the Great Head Trail, it was actually on the other side of the beach hidden in trees. Rob found the stone stairs leading up into the woods.

This trail is about 1.5 miles long and is a loop. Going clockwise, we kicked off our adventure.

Soon we were rewarded with incredible views.

Rob was in a playful mood and ventured off to the edge of the rock cliff. Here he snapped a pic of his feet dangling over the edge. It was a sheer vertical drop!

We made our way down the path and had new views at every turn. Here Jerry decided to also look over and butt-crawled to the edge!

We found an area where the waves crash hard against the rocks, and walked down to it to be close to the action.

We sat there for a while watching for the large waves and enjoying the white foamy swirls in the water.

It was hard to leave this location, we wished we had packed lunch so we could stay longer. But, more exploring was ahead of us so we pushed on. Soon we were back at the beach, which by then had attracted a much larger crowd in the afternoon sun. We walked back to the bike for a snack break. A nice older couple with a 1984 Goldwing stopped by to say hello. They had trailered their bike up from New Jersey and enjoyed riding through the park on it.

Around this time, Rob and Jerry noticed that the mountain across the parking lot had a rock face that people were climbing on. This must be the Beehive trail we read about. Michele got out her binoculars and could see a woman with her baby on her back climbing this rock face! Her husband was crawling up the rocks on hands and knees. She didn’t think this was the trail for her, but Rob and Jerry were ready to go.

The Beehive trail begins with 0.2 miles of rocky boulders on an upward slope to the base of the mountain. We read the ample warnings about falling to one’s death and the need to climb iron rungs on an entirely vertical ascent on a rock face. As we started up a younger guy mentioned he just finished climbing up and it took under an hour, and looks worse than it is. Michele was convinced that a) her heart would explode from exertion and she couldn’t make it up because she would be dead or b) she would fall to her death. Luckily neither happened today. Rob says, if either had happened, she would have blamed him.

The climb was not easy and was truly a rock scramble the entire 560 feet up.

We stopped after especially difficult portions to catch a breather and take a few pictures. Really, only Rob took pictures as Jerry and Michele were too busy trying not to be nervous about the whole thing. We also discovered today that we were hiking with a mountain goat, it being Rob. He would shimmy up the rocks with no effort at all, be yards ahead of us, turn around and ask us what was taking us so long.

There were a few rather difficult portions, the first being the horizontal iron rung “bridge” across a 4-foot crevice. Those rungs were slippery even though they were dry. Scary moment! The next was when Jerry and Michele dumbly followed the Mountain Goat like lemmings up the wrong part of the trail. Actually it wasn’t the trail at all. Here there were no rungs and no good foot or hand holds. It was bad. Michele feared for her life and regretted her decision to suggest this ridiculous trail. All the while Rob impatiently waited for Jerry and Michele to make their way up.

Soon after, we reached the summit. All smiles here!

After the summit of the Beehive trail, we proceeded along the Bowl Trail to a small lake. Along the way, we came across a couple with two Akita’s. Jerry said the white Akita reminded him of Snow, John Snow’s Direwolf from Game of Thrones. The other Akita’s name was Chaos and he did have a mischievous look to him!

We made it back to the bikes around 3:30. The whole trip having taken us right at 2 hours.

Back at the inn, we took a short rest and cleaned up for dinner. We took a short walk to the Finback Alehouse. Michele had a stuffed burger and Jerry and Rob had the fish and chips. Dinner was delicious and Michele started to get her energy back from the day’s ordeal.

We walked down to Ben and Bill’s Chocolate Emporium where Michele and Jerry had some ice cream for desert.

Tomorrow will be our Acadia day ride day. We’ll rest our feet and legs and take a tour around the park on the bikes. The weather is looking fantastic for the rest of our stay with temps in the high 60’s to low 70’s and little to no chance of rain!