First Acadia Trip Of The Year

    It was originally supposed to rain today like it always does on my days off but the showers ended up getting pushed back until tonight so we made our first trip of the year to Acadia. The park loop road just opened a week ago as did the carriage roads which opens up all of our hiking options.

    I woke up at 8:30 and started getting ready, loading up my pack and all that good stuff. Along the way we stopped at Dunkin Donuts for Jaime to get her ‘happy juice’ and we got to see a little woodchuck beside the drive-thru, then Shaws to pick up some lobster rolls. We gassed up at Irving in Holden hoping for some broccoli and cheddar bites but like always they were out. Luckily the Ellsworth one didn’t let me down, they’re usually pretty well stocked there, and I also got a BBQ rib sandwich and some onion rings. We like to stop at Mardens and eat in the parking lot there like we used to do on Jaime’s lunches back when it was Walmart.

      Our first stop of the day was to an off-trail waterfall I went to last year that we’ll call Eagle Cascade. Its not even a tenth of a mile off the carriage road around Eagle Lake but its not quite visible from the path so its rarely visited. But we hate walking along carriage roads so we parked at a viewing area and followed the stream downhill which is a bit more difficult but actually a lot shorter in distance, and much prettier. There are tons of small waterfalls along the way, giving it a very serene atmosphere. During times of low water, like right now, its fun to rock hop down the stream.


    Unfortunately, Eagle Cascade isn’t much to look at during times of low water. I was hoping to make it there during the snow runoff when it would be a raging torrent but with most of the park closed until late April and the fact that the snow melted months ago, no such luck. We’re going to try to make it after a heavy rain one day so we can see it at its full potential. But it was beautiful nonetheless. Its only about ten feet high but the water pours right over a sheer rock face making it a true waterfall.

    From there we walked down the carriage road a couple tenths of a mile to the abandoned ruins on Eagle Lake, a place I’ve visited a couple times, once with my parents and again with Brian and Stephanie, but never with Jaime. Just a couple hundred feet off the carriage road is what remains of a house that was going to be built on the lakeshore. It was never completed but the stone arches and pillars remain of what would have been the foundation. Other than that, nothing else is known about this mysterious location…  

     Until now. Jaime wanted to get some pictures and video of me on top of the arches. I used a small tree to help me climb the wall which is becoming fragile and starting to crumble. After getting some pictures of Jaime popping her head up over the stone wall like a gopher, a rock came loose. Beside the loose stone, I noticed a small crack in the mortar between stones. There was a piece of paper in it, folded up tightly. We figured it was nothing but had to get it out anyway, just to see because we could feel something special. Using a couple small sticks as tweezers, we managed to wiggle the paper out. It was a poem written in ink on old weather worn paper, giving some insight as to why the arches are there, a shrine dedicated to a lost love. I will post more about it on my Leave The World Below blog. This was truly an amazing discovery.

   We jogged back along the carriage road and followed the stream uphill back to our car. Originally we were planning on exploring the side of Mt Champlain like we did a few times last year in search of the Hanging Steps. We found so many awesome places along the mountainside we wanted to go back for further exploration but Jaime was kind of beat after our first adventure. So we parked along the road and I took a quick solo trip to the Hanging Steps to make sure they were all still intact after the winter. They were as glorious as ever. I can’t believe we searched and searched for something that was literally right there. But all the cool places we found along the way were well worth it.


    Continuing along the park loop road we stopped at Hunter’s Head, a landmark on old maps that is hardly mentioned today. I first read about it late last year but never made it. After scouring the internet and finding practically nothing except for a couple cool photos, I figured today was as good a day as any to explore. With a rough idea of where to look, we parked at a viewing area and I walked down through the woods towards the ocean. It didn’t take much exploration to find what I was looking for. Beyond a recently fallen tree there was a small rockslide leading into a giant chasm that split the enormous rock cliff in half, the waves of the ocean crashing more than fifty feet below.


     While making a failed attempt at descending the giant chasm down the rockslide and jagged cliffs, I heard voices nearby. A father and his two daughters were exploring the area as well and informed me that it was indeed possible to go down into the giant chasm, they’d just come from there. It was nice to see a family enjoying nature without being glued to their phones. The tide was beginning to come in though so I’d have to hurry.


      A little free-climbing later I was at the base of Hunters Head, looking into the deep chasm. I’ve never been one for rock climbing but lately I’ve found myself doing it more and more in order to get to cool places and jaw dropping views. To get into the gorge required walking across some seaweed that’s submerged during high tide, which I hate doing because its so slippery but it’d been so long since the tide went out that it wasn’t too bad. Using the timer on my camera I was able to get some great shots of me at the mouth of the chasm. I just started using the timer function a week ago while taking pictures of my closet shelving system and I’m really enjoying it, it beats the hell out of selfies. The giant crack in the cliff was completely dry at the end of it where the water hadn’t touched in hours but with the tide rolling in I didn’t hang around too long. Its an otherworldly, rugged placed, kind of like Thunder Hole on steroids.

I found an easier way up the cliff, no free climbing this time around, the way the family I met told me to go. Hey, I would have but I was short on time so took the most direct route. The ledges that make up Hunters Head are much more jagged and weather worn than the rest of the Acadia shoreline, giving it a more wild feel. I’d actually always wanted to explore that area after seeing it from Little Hunter’s Beach but being a kid at the time, it was a little too far for me to wander off to. After hearing about it Jaime decided she had to see it too. We took the easier way but while sliding down the jagged rocks she ended up with quite the hole in the butt of her pants. We joked about her butt-hole being torn the rest of the day. She didn’t quite make it inside of the chasm but got to see it from the outside and from above.
  
    Rather than drive through Bar Harbor, which probably would have been pretty quiet anyway, we did the rest of the loop road and got to see a couple deer along the way. One of them stopped by our car and posed for us so Jaime got some good pictures. I went to Mardens on our way through Ellsworth and got some snacks. And after smelling the ocean air all day Jaime decided she had to have steamers for supper so we picked up three pounds just before the seafood counter closed. Well, not ‘we’, I did, Jaime had a huge hole in her butt that wouldn’t be appropriate to show off in the grocery store. We’re both a bit sore now but it was well worth it. A great way to kick off the hiking season.