New England Road Trip Day 6: Acadia National Park and The Precipice Trail

Our first full day on Mount Desert Island and Acadia National Park was upon us! We awoke early and departed Belle Isle Motel shortly after sunrise. Breakfast was at Mount Dessert Bakery, a bakery with an adorable name and even cuter interior. It was frequented by locals and tourists alike mostly for their ricotta pound cake, lemon cream bars, and breakfast fare. In anticipation of our hike to come, we carb’ed it up with cheddar bagel brekkie sandwiches, coffee, and a strawberry scone.

Precipice Trail – Acadia National Park

We had big plans today– plans that included conquering The Precipice. Acadia is home to a few iron rung trails, meaning trails with vertical ascents steep or sketchy enough to warrant driving iron rungs, bars, or railings into the rock face that hikers can grasp so they don’t fall flailing off the side of the mountain. The Precipice trail is known to be Acadia’s most heart-thumping and  difficult iron rung trail, and I was excited. Signs were posted everywhere describing the trail as more of a non-technical climbing route rather than a hike, and I would have to agree. This was the most unique hike I’ve ever taken on. Instead of a “hike,” this was more of a– scramble hands and knees over huge boulders, squirm your way through tunnels underneath other fallen boulders, and clutch that iron rung for literal dear life– kind of endeavor. The trail was peppered with iron rungs- some ladder rungs, some horizontal railings to anchor onto while scaling the exposed cliffside, some bars driven flush against the stone to act as footholds. The morning was foggy and our ascent brought us higher and higher into the clouds, bringing a welcome chill but also obscuring the view. We were climbing into the clouds. It was wondrous. The Precipice was the most unique hike I’ve done so far and I’m so glad we did it!

Atlantic Brewing Company

Our original plan was to continue driving along Park Loop Road and stop at the various hot spots of Acadia, but our bellies were singing and legs jiggling, so we opted to head back to Bar Harbor for some grub. As often ends up happening with us, we had beer first. Atlantic Brewing Company has a Bar Harbor location and we enjoyed a flight and fries on their cute patio chairs outside. Go there and try their blueberry ale– pleasantly malty but with a genuine blueberry aroma and aftertaste. Lunch after beer was at a cute Nepalese fusion restaurant– Royal Indian— which served up chana masala and momos that our post-hike tummies welcomed warmly.

Lobster Ice Cream

Is it a true NERT without daily lobster? Possibly not. We hadn’t had any crustacean buddies this day yet, but Ben & Bill’s Chocolate Emporium was about to fill that void. Chocolate Emporium, you ask? Yes- this candy shop/bakery/ice creamery combo offered something Michael was as skeptical as I was excited about. Lobster ice cream! I loved it. Butter ice cream enveloped innumerable (actually quite sizeable) chunks of frozen lobster meat. The ice ream was reminiscent of butter pecan flavor, and if you thawed the lobster chunks in your mouth before chewing you could taste the very subtle savory briney flavor that complimented the ice cream just as wll as roasted pecans or salted caramel would. Would do again, for sure.

Bar Harbor Shore Path

After wandering and window shopping along Bar Harbor’s main street, we cut east towards the water to walk the Shore Path. This manicured gravel walkway is sandwiched by the pebble beach and ocean on one side and the historic Bar Harbor old-money mansions on the other. The far north end of Shore Path takes you by the Bar Harbor Inn & Spa, with its enviable infinity pool and hot tubs overlooking the water. One day…

Bar Harbor Island Path

By this time it was late afternoon, and also perfect low-tide time. Why does this matter? Because the Bar Island Path is only accessible during low tide, when the waters recede enough to uncover a sandy path you can walk across to access Bar Island. Tides in this part of Maine rise and fall up to 12 feet! We made our way to Bar Island Path and took some time to explore the tide pools. We found a couple of small crabs and I felt like a kid again crouching in the sand and water getting dirty poking around looking for treasures.

Sand Beach Picnic

Let’s face it– lobster ice cream wasn’t quite enough lobster to count for the day. For dinner, we headed to Down East Deli and ordered a lobster roll, clam chowder, and slice of blueberry pie. We took our food to-go, hopped back into the car, and returned to the Park Loop Road on our way to Sand Beach. Some ominous storm clouds were slowly rolling in, causing everyone else to clear out in search of dinner of their own. It made for a perfectly serene, private beach picnic dinner date as sunset fell.

 

Travel Tips – Bar Harbor, Maine

-Maine is cold! I checked the weather beforehand and we brought jackets but still underestimated how chilly it would get especially with an unexpected couple of rainy days. We ended up buying some long pants to keep warm.

-There is surprisingly ***very*** limited T Mobile cellular service in Bar Harbor and most areas we drove through north of Portland.

-For the entire Acadia National Park area, make sure you reserve lodging in advance. Most inns and motels had “No Vacancy” signs posted when we got there.

-Keep a close eye out for the trail markers. We missed the first big fork and started the Precipice loop the wrong direction, accidentally hiking north on the Orange and Black Path rather than going up the actual Precipice Trail. When we discovered our mistake our options were to finish the loop and hike the Precipice Trail backwards or hike back to the road and start all over again from the trailhead. It is NOT recommended to hike Precipice backwards, as something that sketchy to climb up is even worse going the other direction, so we opted for the latter. It definitely added to our total mileage but was so worth it! Don’t pass on the Precipice!

-Look up the tide times in advance. You can go to Bar Island only during low tide (and thus can get stranded on Bar Island if you don’t make your return trip before high tide returns). The best time to hear the “thunder” at Thunder Hole along Park Loop Road is 1-2 hours before high tide.