Acadia National Park

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• Quick stats about this trip:
  • 🚘: 1,200 miles
  • 🚶🏻‍♀️: 5 miles

I drove up to Acadia National Park with my family for a weekend in October to view the beautiful fall foliage that the area is known for. We reserved a large house via HomeAway (now VRBO) just across the bay from Acadia National Park- this meant that we had to circle the bay in order to visit the park, a drive of about 40 minutes.

We started the drive out of Brooklyn on Thursday night and made it to Gouldsboro, ME to our rental on Friday morning. We brought along our own food and did not do any shopping locally.

After a short nap to refresh ourselves, we headed out to view some of the fall colors. We did not plan these stops in advance, and just stopped randomly wherever the colors caught our eye.

At a lake we came across.

The view from our cabin’s porch was superb as well.

After a beautiful Shabbos, we headed over to Acadia National Park, to take in the night sky. Being from Brooklyn, I’d never seen a truly black sky with millions of stars before, so the sight was breathtaking. We spent our time at Sand Beach, where the best and unobstructed views are.

The next morning, we headed back to the park to explore. Entry was free with our America the Beautiful Park pass, and being that it was October, fall foliage was at its peak. Words cannot adequately describe the beauty of all the popping colors meshing together to create a feast for the eyes.

We stopped by the visitor’s center for a few minutes to grab a map and some souvenirs, and then continued on our way.

We started driving along Park Loop Road, the road that circles the park, and stopped at Cadillac Mountain.

This is a popular spot at sunrise as it is the first place in the Continental US that receives the sun’s rays each morning. Note that permits are often required to go up the peak at sunrise. We did not aim to make it in time for sunrise, although the summit was rather full when we got there, being that it was Sunday in peak season. We kept stopping on the way up the mountain to take in the views, and the sites only increased in beauty the higher up we went.

Next, we headed to Precipice Trail, taking the black route, one of my all-time favorite hikes. Precipice Trail is a rock scramble, so we were never on even ground- it is similar to rock climbing, but with thousand-foot drops at the side and very little to hold onto.

At times the trail is a narrow plank alongside the rockface, and at others climbing under huge boulders with very little clearance is required. I found the challenge exhilarating, and the views more than worthy.

Thankfully I had brought gloves with me, which really helped me keep my grip without shredding my hands. Most of my family did not have gloves, and had nasty friction burns by the time we reached the summit. There were no complaints from anyone though (excepting one in our party who was convinced that the trail was not meant for humans), as the views just kept increasing in magnificence the higher we climbed.

We had accidentally left our water bottles in the car before heading out on this hike which had us drinking from streams and rivulets along the way- I’m pretty sure this is not considered safe practice, but thankfully none of us had any lingering effects.

After spending some time at the summit and then skipping back down to our car (the way down is on steep but flat ground, and literally takes just a few minutes),

we headed over to Sand Beach to see it in its daytime glory.

After a fun-filled but exhausting day, we pointed our car south and started the all-night drive back to Brooklyn.

While we did not get to visit many of the popular spots in Acadia National Park on our short trip, here are some additional points of interest to check out:

• Schooner Head Overlook (during low tide visit Anemone Cave)
• Beehive trail
• Thunder Hole (during high tide)
• Penobscot Mountain trail
• Jordan Pond
• Bubble Rock trail
• Carriage Road
• Bass Harbor Head Lighthouse
• Whale Watching in Bar Harbor

About Post Author

globetrottinggeek

Visited 45/50 US States Visited 30/63 US National Parks