Acadia is a national park located on the northeast coast of Maine. The park is on Mt Desert Island and offers nice and easy hikes with terrific colors during foliage. It is approximately a 4 1/2 hour drive from Boston. We went in October 2020 during Covid-19 with friends.

In this post we propose an itinerary for a week, it can be accommodated to fit a long weekend.

Week Itinerary

• Boston to Acadia
• (1)Otter cliff,  (2)Beech Cliff Trail + Beech Mountain loop trail, (3)Perpendicular Trail, 
• Park loop road, (4)The Beehive, (5)Parkman Mountain
• (6)The Precipice trail, biking the carriage road
• (7)Jordan Pond, Bar Harbor, Bar Island, 
• Baxter Park
• (8)Cadillac Mountain, Jordan Pond, (9)Bass Harbor Head lighthouse, (10)Flying Mountain 
• Acadia to Boston

Practical information

• Housing: For a week we found it more convenient to rent a house. We used a local renting company as the prices were better than Vrbo or Airbnb. The house was near Southwest Harbor, which is a more quiet neighborhood compare to Bar Harbor. It still has a few nice shops and it gives the opportunity to visit the west side (where you can also find great hikes).
• Hiking resources: Acadia during fall is all about hiking. The best resources we found to select our hikes are: 
  • « Joe’s guide to Acadia National Park » – Link. This website contains very good descriptions and pictures for every hike The pictures, in addition of being beautiful, are extremely useful to understand the technicity of the hike
  • AllTrails application.
  • « National Geographic Secrets of the National Parks: The Experts’ Guide to the Best Experiences Beyond the Tourist Trail ». This book offers a selection of hikes based on Rangers’ feedbacks, for each National Park a selection of hikes. They are usually hikes hikes accessible to all. We have been impressed by how good all the recommendations are for Acadia.
  • Acadia National Park website, mainly for hike closure. Be careful some hikes can be closed due to bird nesting or maintenance.
  • You can use this article and the map at the bottom: we added all our GPS tracks, including elevation, distance and time.

Day 1 – Boston to Acadia

Going to Acadia from Boston takes about 4h30min. On our way we did two important stops: 

• Portland is a very cool city to enjoy good restaurants and breweries. With Covid we can’t stop for good restaurants but we do a pick-up at Bissell Brothers which is one of the highest ranked brewery in New England. Other good breweries around includes: Definitive Brewing Company and Foundation (and many others we have not tried yet). For food we would recommend The Highroller Lobster Co or Izakaya Minato .
• Freeport Outlet, is located 30 minutes north from Portland. This Outlet has many outdoor brands (The North Face, Patagonia, Fjallraven, LL Bean, Columbia…). The North Face outlet shop is definitely our favorite one as we often find very good deals on technical gears. The LL Bean flagship store is worth stopping by. The fishing and hunting parts are impressive for a European. I never thought I would see so many guns and fishing rods in a single place. We also stop by When Pigs Fly to buy bread for the week. They have a great choice of classic and sweet bread (the chocolate bread is one of our favorite !). If you need a break from shopping, you can also find great breweries: Mast Landing and Maine Beer Company.

Day 2 – Otter cliff,  Beech Cliff Trail + Beech Mountain loop trail, Perpendicular Trail

Beech Cliff trail. (ref: Alltrails: Beech Cliff Ladder and Canada Cliff Loop and  Beech Mountain loop trail)

The trail head is at Echo lake beach parking. We decided to do it counterclockwise. It starts by a steep but relatively short climb to reach the top of Beech cliff. This part contains few easy ladders which are good to confirm that everyone in the group is comfortable with this type of hike before doing Beehive or Precipice. From the top of the Beech cliff we have a nice view on the lake. We do the short Beech cliff loop trail ,for additional views on the lake, in the middle of red and green vegetation. We then head west to the parking located at the end of the Beech hill road. From this parking we start the Beech Mountain loop trail. We do it clockwise, the upward is in the middle of the forest and is a little bit boring, but the summit offers some good views of the park. The best part of the trail is the downward part which goes on the west edge of the Beech Mountain with nice views on Long pond. We go back to our starting point through the Canada cliff trail. (We started our GPS tracker a little bit late so the starting point on our map is not 100% accurate)

Perpendicular trail. (ref: AllTrails: Mansell Mountain loop – starting by the perpendicular trail) 

The perpendicular trail starts from Long Pond trail head. After a short flat part around the lake, the ascension starts on a rocky area. This trail offers beautiful views on Long Pond and Beech Mountain. There is no ladder but spectacular views. Something I really like about this hike is the quietness, we only met 1 or 2 other groups during this hike.

Day 3 – Park loop road, The Beehive, Parkman Mountain

For the 2nd day we do the Beehive trail. This is the most popular trail of the park and it contains some ladders – arrive early if you want to find a parking spot ! We were at 7am at the Sand Beach parking area, to be among the first ones. To go there we take the Park loop road and enjoy a beautiful sunrise at the Egg Rock overlook.

The Beehive (AllTrails ref: The Beehive loop trail)

The trail starts in the forest and we get wonderful colors with the low sun just piercing the orange leaves. We did the loop counterclockwise, and the ascension started quickly after the start. The trail is equipped with ladders, nothing really dangerous but not recommended for people with vertigo. Doing it in the morning is not good for taking pictures as we have a backlight exposition, but it is very nice to enjoy the climbing when the trail is quiet.  The view at the top of the Beehive is great and is perfect for breakfast. 

The downward part in direction of The Bowl is nice and easy at the beginning with nice north east views. The Bowl can also be great spot for pictures, but unfortunately the sky was starting to be more cloudy for us. The rest of the trail to go back to the car is in the forest, with nothing specific to see. 

After the Beehive Trail we checked quickly the Sand Beach and did the Park Loop road to go to Bar Harbor. We headed then to the Parkman Mountain parking area. 

Parkman Mountain ( ref Alltrails: Parkman Mountain trail)

The Parkman Mountain trail starts on the carriage road and goes up on some more rocky areas. The trail is easy and quiet as we are in a part of the park which is less busy. We also noticed some specific cairns built like small bridges (Bates style cairns). They seem to be specific to the Acadia area. The top of the Parkman mountain and the Bald peak offer great views over Some Sounds fjord with more lakes and forest behind. 

Day 4 – The Precipice trail, biking the carriage road

As the weather was supposed to be cloudy but nice in the morning with a possibility of light rain in the afternoon, we chose the same strategy than on day 3: starting early with a technical trail from the east side of the park: Precipice trail. 

Precipice trail (AllTrails ref: Precipice, Orange, Black path and Park loop road). 

Precipice trail is the most challenging of the famous Acadia hikes. The trail starts with some climbing on a scree with big rocks. It goes then through the cliff side with multiple ladders and bridges to reach the top. The trail is more challenging than the Beehive, but there is nothing extremely technical if you are not afraid of ladders. Some parts of the Trails could be qualified as an easy Via Ferrata or Via Corda. The weather was not as good as the previous days and we did find fog at the top obstructing the view and making the breakfast less enjoyable (despite the good bread !). The downward part goes north on the Champlain north ridge trail and we were lucky enough to have some nice views on Bar Harbor. We then went east on the Orange and Black path to reach the Park loop road to head back to the precipice trail parking. Except for the Park loop road which is not really designed for hikers, this is a very fun hike.

Biking the Carriage Road

We are done with precipice trail around 10am. The weather being cloudy it seemed to be a good day to bike the carriage roads. To rent bikes, we head first to Bar Harbor, but renting there is probably not the best idea. There was a huge line to get bikes, parking car was difficult, and cherry on the cake, the bikes didn’t look very good.  We then went to Northeast Harbor, and found Island Bike Rental. Here we were able to park the car easily (and for free!) and after a quick talk we could rent bikes which look good. 

We started by going north on the 198 road to catch the carriage road. We then went east toward Jordan Pond through the Little Harbor Brook stream and the Cliffside Bridge. I am happy we chose those carriage roads as these two spots are very nice. After a short stop at Jordan Pond we kept biking to Bubble pond and around Eagle lake. We finished our loop by going west of Sargent peak, back to our starting point. This part of the carriage Road is more challenging with some elevation. I was initially not sure that biking the carriage roads was a must do, but I really enjoyed it. The roads are well maintained, the signs at each intersection are cool and the forest colors are wonderful.  

Day 5 – Jordan Pond, Bar Harbor, Bar Island

The weather this day was very cloudy, we were not planning big hikes, just a few places to discover.

Jordan Pond (and Jordan stream trail) 

We parked at the Jordan pond parking. Weather was cold but « it could be worse, it could be raining » (phrase said many times during the week). Because of Covid-19, only the gift shop of the Pond house was open at this time. It took us two minutes to reach the pond and the famous view to take a few pictures. Even with the poor weather this is still nice. We then went south for a short loop around the Jordan Pond stream. There is nothing amazing to see but we enjoyed some quietness, nice mushrooms and beautiful stone bridges.

On our way back to the car, we made a stop at the shop of the pond house. This is a good place to buy souvenirs. As we were at the end of the season, there were some good discounts.

Bar Harbor

Bar Harbor is the main town of the island. It is full of bars, souvenir shops, and hostels. No crowd for us but we can easily imagine that during summer all the terraces must be full of people enjoying nice Maine beers and lobsters. We finished shopping for souvenirs and decided to try Bar island.

Bar Island 

Bar Island is a small island that can be reached by foot from Bar Harbor at low tide. We arrived a little bit too early and we waited for the water to go down. Slowly we can see the path appearing and it felt a little bit like Moses crossing the sea. A steady stream of people converged to this path which connects to the Island. We did the same as everybody: Cross the sea, go at the top of the Island, and go back through the same path. From the top of the Island we do have a good view on Bar Harbor.

Day 6 – Baxter Park

So far we have seen less wildlife in Acadia than what we are used to see in Boston. Not a lot of squirrels, no turkey, nothing…. In order to see more we went to Baxter State park, dreaming of seeing a moose. Baxter State park is 3 hours north from Acadia, it is a wild area with forest, lac, mountains and animals.

We wake-up early to arrive at the park around 9am. At the Park gate, the ranger asked for an emergency phone numbers from someone not in the party (as there is no network). He also informed us that the part of the park we were planning to visit just closed 1 day ago for wildlife preservation. Based on the ranger recommendations, we headed west towards a dirt road to reach Kidney Pond. No Moose and no wildlife seen around the parking. We then decided to start hiking around the pond. At the start of each hike there is a box with a notebook to keep record of each party starting a trail. Certainly something the Rangers would use if your party ends up being missing. 

We hiked a little bit around Kidney pond and reached Rocky pond. We expressed mixed feelings: on one side we have never been in a forest so quiet and isolated, and on the other side we are disappointed that we could not see a moose, an otter, or even a beaver!

We started to understand that seeing wildlife would be more difficult than expected. We went to the Niagara fall trail which is close by, and where are supposed to be nice waterfalls. Hopefully the waterfalls are easier to find than the moose. The waterfall were indeed easy to find, but not extremely impressive (most certainly because we compared them to Alps’ waterfalls).

At this stage the park did not meet our expectations and we decided to go back to Acadia. We still had some hope and stoped by 3 different ponds before exiting the park. Still no wildlife, but some areas where we easily imagine that beavers could be happy. On our way back we stoped by Bangor Beer Co which is one of the best rated breweries of the itinerary.  The sunset light on the road back to Acadia is certainly the most beautiful moment of the day. 

Day 7 – Cadillac Mountain, Jordan Pond, Bass Harbor Head lighthouse, Flying Mountain 

For our last day in Acadia the weather forecast brought us hope that we may catch a good sunset on top of Cadillac Mountain even if the rest of the day was supposed to be cloudy. It will be a good day to do all the main stops that we have not done yet. 

We did wake up super early to be at the top of the mountain at 5am. This was early, but this is the only way to be sure to have a spot on the parking lot and to be the first ones to see the sun in the USA that day. It was still dark and with our headlights we went down a little to find a good spot that we hoped would be well exposed. We set-up a quick camp with some blankets and started to eat our breakfast despite the cold wind. Slowly the sky turned from black to dark bleu, and finally the sun rised and lighted all the clouds in red. This was a short moment but our early wake-up was not wasted.

Going back to the car we discovered that the empty parking was now full of cars trying to go down (expect some traffic). We headed to Jordan pond which was still foggy to take some pictures of the old carriage road gate house.

One of the most famous view point that we had not yet done was the Bass Harbor Head lighthouse on the south west side of the Park. We accessed it from the small parking lot and we took the trail that goes down to the water. The area was pretty packed and we just stop for a quick picture. 

One additional famous activity of Acadia that we had not done yet was to enjoy some fresh seafood. So on our way back we stoped for a takeaway at Charlottes Legendary Lobster Pound.  Ariana tried the lobster roll, on my side I took the lobster bisque and the fried scallops. The fried scallops were surprisingly very well cooked.

After this not super healthy meal we went for a short hike around the flying mountain. The hike offers some nice views on the fjord and is quiet. We stoped at one of the viewpoints with some other hikers. They showed us a Bald Eagle waiting at the top of the trees. Seeing one of these eagles was a good way to end our week in Acadia. We finally saw some wildlife :).

Day 8 – Acadia to Boston

Going back to Boston, we stoped by some breweries in Portland and reflected on our trip. Acadia is a really nice park to enjoy during fall. It is full of small hikes that you can combine to have a busy day. And the colors were amazing!

Map

Check the map below to see all the trails we did.

Discover more

More breweries and hikes on our map from Boston below, or by following-us on Untappd or Instagram.