Playtime!: Maine Day 6 - Bar Island, Acadia Mountain, Echo Lake

I’d wanted to give myself an easier day, since I was getting worn out from all the go go go, not sure I succeeded in “easy” but it was a great day!

I started at the Opera House drinking coffee and enjoying caramel twirls – like cinnamon rolls only with caramel inside!

Around 10:00 I headed out to walk to Bar Island. There is a sand bar that during hide tide is under water, but during low tide you can walk, even drive, right across! It’s right there in a Bar Harbor so I thought I’d check it out. I found it very easily, it’s a very popular place! The walk across the sand bar was nice, there were a few little tide pools, but I didn’t have on waterproof shoes so I didn’t get out into the seaweed and stuff. It was about a mile to hike from the street to the top of the island. It was a nice quick walk, took a few pictures at the top. Hopefully these will be come out better, I noticed on many of my pictures from the boat ride were horribly crooked!

I got back to Bar Harbor about 11:30 and walked over to a little deli that I’d found, it has a snarky sign in the window that makes me laugh: “Best Sandwiches on this corner!”  They had lobster rolls and since I’m in Maine I need to eat lobster at least once and I can’t do the steamed lobster thing because I can just picture the little guy alive on the ocean floor! Unfortunately, they didn’t have lobster rolls so I had to settle for a ham & swiss! It was a super sandwich, I’ll def go back there!

The plan was to head out to Echo Lake and hike a short little trail there and then go for a swim in the lake, but I really wanted to hike up Acadia Mt, only I wasn’t sure the bus would pick me up, so I decided to ask in the mini-visitor center on the Village Green. Apparently Acadia Mt trailhead is very popular and lots of hikers get on and off the bus there. It’s too dangerous for the bus headed to Village Green to stop but the bus headed to Southwest Harbor will pick you up if you flag it down. That’s worked perfectly because after I hiked I wanted to go to Echo Lake and that was in the same direction as Southwest Harbor!

A number of folks got off the bus with me at Acadia Mt and the parking area was full! It was a 2.5 mile loop so I wasn’t expecting it to be to rough. I wasn’t even wearing my hiking boots because I hadn’t figured on going on a “real” hike today!

Well, Acadia kinda kicked my butt. It was VERY rocky and by rocky I mean climb over boulders, crawl on all fours, etc… But the effort was totally worth it when I saw the views at the top! Unfortunately, my camera got spray on the lens on the boat yesterday which left some marks on the pictures! I have since cleaned it off, but I didn’t realize it was there until I saw my pics! Somes Sound is the only fjord on the east coast! It’s pretty cool! 

If I thought the trip up was hard, the trip down was even harder! I’m glad I went up the way I did! It was very very steep and there were rocks that were vertical, yet the trail went right down them. It was a little less than a mile and it took me over an hour! It was very slow going! Many times I was down on my butt scooting! But the whole way down I had awesome views of the sound! At the bottom I joined up with a fire road and it was wide and flat and lead right back to the parking lot! The fire road was a mile long and I hiked it in about 20 mins!

I got back to the parking lot and checked out the bus schedule to see when I should be on the lookout for the bus. I’d seen a bus going the opposite direction as I was coming in so I knew my bus would be soon. It came less than 5 mins after I got to the parking area! Perfect timing! I flagged it down and got on. It was a short ride over to Echo Lake.

Echo Lake has a swimming beach and it’s warmer than the ocean, still chilly, but a lot warmer! I’d brought my bathing suit and towel so I got changed and went for a swim! The cold water felt so good! Swimming in a lake is so much better than a pool! I swam for about 20-30 mins before I started pruning up! It was chilly in the water, but it was actually colder when you got out! The air temp was in the high 60s/70s with a breeze! I changed back into my clothes and went to wait for the bus.

The bus took a very long time to come, but I met a nice family from Ottawa and they told me where they have hiked, they had some good suggestions! Eventually the bus came I was on my way back to the Village Green.

Ever since I started planning this trip Mom has been telling me about a resteraunt call Maggie’s, here in Bar Harbor. It’s a great little place, Maggie the owner and chef, grows all her own food and creates new menu items weekly! It was not a cheap dinner and I wasn’t sure it was really an “eat by yourself” place, but I went to check it out. I figured I needed to go today because I was a bit “cleaner” coming into Bar Harbor at the end of the day because I’d gone swimming and I wasn’t wearing my grubby hiking clothes (although my 1 pair of denim shorts are past needing to be washed!). I had the lobster crepes and the were AWESOME! Big chunks of lobster swimming a rich, bisque-like sauce. Very rich, but very good.

On my way back to catch the bus I stopped for some blueberry soft-serve to cap off the day!
Tomorrow I’m headed out to Jordan Pond, got a loop hiked planed to see all the cool stuff there! Supposed to be cloudy and there’s a 40% chance of rain – hopefully it will be passing showers here and there.