Our journey to Isle au Haut and Duck Harbor Campground finally came to a close. We had used up our maximum 3 nights to stay in the campground. So it was time to venture back to Mount Desert Island where we hadn’t yet visited the western half of the island and our next home, Seawall Campground. The weather had been great each day on Isle au Haut, but on the day we left the skies were grey and foggy. As we…
This trail wasn’t even on our radar when we arrived on Isle au Haut. Why not? Simply because it’s not on any maps, so we didn’t know about it. I did find it on a USGS topo map, but it’s not on any published park maps. The trail is maintained occasionally, but it’s off the beaten path and takes time to get to. The trail is 1.8 miles out-and-back from the trailhead, but it takes 2.4 miles along an unpaved…
On our second day at Duck Harbor in Acadia National Park, we decided to get a taste of what it’s like to live locally on Isle au Haut. So we made the decision to hike into town, which is the aptly named Isle au Haut Town. It’s the only town on the island, and would be a solid day hike to get there and back. We knew there was a general store and ranger station near the town. We didn’t…
Duck Harbor Mountain is the most prominent feature near Duck Harbor Campground. Rising to an elevation of around 300 feet, the mountain forms the best hike near the campground too. There are a few loops that can be created via the Duck Harbor Mountain Trail, and we chose a 4.2 mile loop. The loop starts near Duck Harbor Campground and ascends to the summit of Duck Harbor Mountain, then heads west along the coast, and finally returns north to complete the…
Arriving at Duck Harbor is an experience – you see the dock as you come around Eben’s Head, see the park ranger waiting for you, and all the people getting ready to board the boat to return to Stonington. But most of all, the view of endless rocky Maine coastline, with mountains in the distance. And it’s all another adventure waiting to happen. “Kill Nothing but Time…Take Nothing but Pictures…Leave Nothing but Tracks…” – Anonymous (Posted on Duck Harbor Campground…
We like to go off the beaten path, so it’s only natural that we would go to Duck Harbor Campground. It’s a primitive, remote campground on the sparsely populated island of Isle au Haut, and boasts hiking trails, bogs, and mountains to explore. About half of the island is part of Acadia National Park. What’s not to like? Our journey to Isle au Haut began in Bar Harbor, where we had just gone kayaking and checked out of Blackwoods Campground. We headed…
We waffled a bit on whether or not to go kayaking, but only because there’s so much to do in Acadia. We decided to in the end because we wanted more practice as we plan to kayak at many other parks. It gave our legs a rest from hiking, provided great views, and was our closest look at some wildlife. We learned a lot about the park through this experience. None of the water surrounding Acadia is actually part of…
We started off our third day in Acadia with another iconic hike – Pemetic Mountain. Located on the east side of Mount Desert Island, right near Jordan Pond. There are four trail options to the Pemetic summit, and the northwest path (4.2 miles) seemed most interesting to us. The previous day, we hiked the Beehive, which features iron rungs and a small iron bridge. Pemetic has its own unique obstacles – ladders – which sounded fun. We’ll check out another…
There are a lot of trails in Acadia. Since we were only there for 10 days, we wouldn’t have time to hike them all. For our first “major” hike, we decided to combine two very different hikes into a single trip – Ocean Path & The Beehive. You could easily do the hikes individually, but we wanted more of a challenge. The hikes are on the eastern side of Mount Desert Island, only 6 miles from Bar Harbor. Ocean Path…
The well-known philanthropist John D. Rockefeller, Jr. made many significant contributions to the landscape of Acadia National Park; one was a system of carriage roads along with 17 unique bridges for visitors to enjoy. Our national parks need more people like that! Carriage roads and hiking trails weave together to provide a variety of routes to explore the rivers and bridges on the East side of the park (Schoodic also has a newly-built network of “carriage roads”). Due to time…