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Acadia National Park
Camping & Hiking Trip

Mt. Desert Island, Maine

Saturday October 6th - Tuesday October 9th, 2012

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Group Sunday morning Do two fall break Acadia trips in a row make it an Outing Club tradition? How about three of them in five years? Either way, after a long drive north and our first night at the campsite, the eight of us were super eager to explore. So bright and early Sunday morning that's exactly what we set out to do!
Boulder field Our first destination was Penobscot Mountain, where Andrew, James and Andrew #2 explore a boulder field alongside the trail. Further up the mountain, we all stop to rest and enjoy the scenery (except James because the top of his head is missing).
Rest stop
The Bubbles and Jordan Pond From the trail, we had an awesome view of The Bubbles and Jordan Pond.
Jess & Chris crossing bridge
Jess and Chris cross a bridge on the trail up Penobscot Mountain, as Hannah gazes at the wilderness.
Hannah

Success! We reach the top of Penobscot Mountain and enjoy the nice views across the bay while eating peanut butter and tuna sandwiches for lunch.
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Hannah We leave Penobscot Mountain and set our sights on Sargent Mountain, our next destination. En route, Hannah decides to stick her head in Sargent Mountain Pond. Hannah does things like that.


Fun fact: Sargent Mountain Pond formed nearly 17,000 years ago and is belived to be Maine's earliest lake.
Group on Sargent Mountain Success #2 - we reach the Sargent Mountain summit, our second one of the day! While Sargent is about 200 feet higher than Penobscot, the trail was more of a traverse than straight up, making it easier to climb. But until we finally reached the summit we were never sure how much further we had to go. It was also slightly eerie as the rain clouds began to move in.
Jordan Pond We hiked down Sargent Mountain and around Jordan Pond, enjoying a view from across the pond of Penobscot Mountain on the left and The Bubbles on the right. We had emerged from the notch between the two and walked the shoreline clockwise. As the tiring day drew to a close we returned to our campsite for dinner around the fire.

Our Monday morning plan to watch the first sunrise in the US on Cadillac mountain was put on hold by a cold rain. But skies cleared as we had breakfast and headed up Champlain Mountain via the Precipice Trail. The rocks were still slightly wet, which made for an even more exciting climb. No worries... we all survived just fine!
Precipice Trail
Precipice Trail
Precipice Trail view The views from the cliffs on the Precipice Trail were outstanding.
Hannah From the Precipice Trail Hannah soars off the ledge. Hannah does things like that.

Below, a look down at what we had just climbed up. And reaching the top, a sign warned us of the perils that lay behind.
Cliffside
warning sign

Our whole group on the Champlain Mountain summit, with Cadillac Mountain in the background, and a shot of Thomas and Andrew overlooking the bay.

Group on Champlain Mountain Thomas & Andrew

After descending Champlain Mountain we drove to Sand Beach and explored Thunder Hole. It is named for the sound created by waves crashing into the cavern at the end of a small inlet.

Andrew and Chris at Thunder Hole Thunder Hole
View of coastline Our view along the coast from Thunder Hole. Sand Beach is just around the bend.
Ice cream in Bar Harbor We left thunder hole and drove to Bar Harbor to buy propane for our camp stove, but ended up sticking around for some souvenir shopping and ice cream. It was very tasty.
Group on Cadillac Mountain Tuesday morning we woke up in pitch darkess at 4:30 a.m. for the drive up Cadillac Mountain, determined to see the first sunrise in the US. It was so very windy... can you tell we were frozen? While the clouds kept us from actually seeing the sun pop up, it was still a beautiful awakening sky. And we were not alone. We met a very friendly couple from wisconsin and a senior citizen photography club from Alabama who had come to take sunrise pictures.
campsite We returned from Cadillac to our campsite to thaw out and pack everything up. For fun, we bought a copy of the Bangor Daily News and read the newspaper stories aloud on the van ride home, concluding that basically nothing happens in northern Maine. Our drive took a full 8 hours, including getting slightly lost on an accidental but very scenic detour. Arriving home, we knew we couldn't have asked for a better fall break!

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