We woke up to wet campground and a reminder in my sandal to check in at the ranger station. Seawall Rangers sounds like something from a sci-fi show. At least the rain had stopped.
I made my super awesome peanut butter and banana on bread breakfast and then we went to pay for our site and find some hikes.
The first hike we decided to do was one that wouldn't be compromised because of the rain. We didn't want to be slipping on rocks. The path started by a large pond. It climbed up these stairs and wound through a forest of spruce trees.
We followed the well-marked paths to the Great Notch area.
The scenery kept changing as we got higher. It became more rocky and the trees changed. We were looking for a nice view that we were told was atop Great Notch but we found no such view.
We followed the blue markers which looked like an interior design ninja had thrown color samples like ninja stars at the trees.
The forest itself was beautiful and had several running streams idling down rocky beds.
We took a different path on the way back along the pond's edge.
We found a nice spot and sat for a while enjoying the great view.
When we got back to the car we sat at the edge of Long Pond (you can see why it has that name) and had our lunch.
The next stop on our trip was the cliffs along the edge of the ocean. This was an amazing sight. It's exactly what I think of when I think of Maine. The water was crashing on the rocks in waves of white foam and the view went on for miles.
There was an easy path along the edge of the rocks but we decided to make it interesting and climb the rocks all the way down.
We came across a few areas where we had to make the jump.
Some places we didn't have to but it was a lot of fun to do it anyway!
Just climbing on these rocks and finding places to jump from one to another was so much fun. It turned out it was practice for what was to come...
We continued walking along the water's edge for some time, climbing up rocks and down, avoiding crashing waves as we climbed up wet cliff sides and clinging to the edge while pulling ourselves up using roots of trees. It was a great time.
We decided to get Chinese for dinner. Our waitress was really friendly, as most people seem to be up there. I sat and had some tea after our meal before going out to find a view.
We drove to the top of Cadillac Mountain to find a stunning view of the whole area. You could see for miles around, with handfuls of small islands dotting the ocean.
We sat watching the sunset and reading until the sun ducked behind clouds and didn't appear to want to come back out.
We headed back to the camp and it started raining so we had to duck for cover in our tent and get to bed somewhat early again.
We packed up our stuff in the morning and went in search of our hike for the day. We settle on the north trail to Cadillac Mountain. It's the highest point on the east coast or the northeast or something. After our usual breakfast of PBJ, we headed up the trail.
It started off somewhat steep on smooth rocks and then got more wooded with rocky step section. The terrain changes so often on all of the trails at Acadia. That's one of the things I really like about it. It wasn't overly strenuous. The trail was a moderate grade so it was nothing like the Precipice.
We had a nice view out over the water on the way up. A lot of open areas when we got past the treeline made it easy to keep checking out the island and boats. There was water flowing down the trail in several parts from the recent rain so that made it a little slippery at times.
Once we got to the top the view was totally obstructed by fog. This map shows what we might have seen if there were any visibility at all. I saw it last time and it's pretty amazing. It happens.
We started heading down the south route, which may have been more fun coming up. There were some steeper parts to climb down that we didn't have on the other trail. Most of the extra length was made up on the top of the mountain, staying along a mainly flat trail along the rock face.
We descended into a dense, wet forest on the way out. Many parts of the trail were flooded and somewhat treacherous to walk along. I almost slipped a few times. It was a little dangerous but really beautiful.
When we got out to the main road we had to walk to the park loop and then hang out and wait for the bus. While we waited, Alex did planks in the road and we considered how many buses there might be on the somewhat small loop in the park.
It was a lengthy ride on the bus, including a wait for a switchover at the Visitor Center. Once we got back to the car we went back to town to Poor Boy's Gourmet for dinner. They had and early bird special so I got some seafood bake with baby carrots. Tasty. And Alex had to get some coconut cake for dessert so I had to help eat that...
We got some sneaky showers at the KOA and then headed southeast out of Maine. We were on the road for a while before crossing into New Hampshire, passing quite a few different moose warning signs along the way.
We found a National Forest campground for a reasonable price right down the road from the next day's planned hike so we pitched a tent and called it a night.
