Aug. 23 – Northeast Harbor, ME

Northeast Harbor Mooring
Mount Desert Island

"How glorious a greeting the sun gives the mountains!"—John Muir

What a beautiful day we had...the sun was back and the temperature was in the low 70s…a perfect day for hiking. We caught the bus to Parkman Mountain parking lot and hiked the Parkman Mountain/Bold Peak trail. The hike was a little steep and rocky near the summit, but it took us to the top of two barren granite peaks that gave us amazing views of Somes Sound, Northeast Harbor, Upper Hadlock Pond, Great Cranberry Island and the Atlantic Ocean.

We enjoyed the hike and didn’t get in a hurry; we took in all the views and spent time picking blueberries along the trail. The trail was covered in wild blueberry bushes…they were everywhere and we ate as many as we could and brought about a pint home. We enjoyed a picnic lunch at the top of Bald Peak…there’s just nothing better than lunch with a view.

LL Bean pays for the Island Explorer...it's the free shuttle bus service on Mount Desert and Acadia National Park. It makes getting around very easy. You can hop on and off anywhere you like. Just wave the bus down and they pick you up. The buses came pretty regularly so we didn't have to wait long for our bus back to the marina.

Blueberry bushes along the trail.

One of the trail markers

The trail we just came up

The trail

The view from Parkman Mountain...looking out towards Somes Sound

The trail...going up

Our lunch spot...all those bushes in the foreground are full of blueberries

Looking down the trail to Upper Hadlock Pond, Northeast Harbor and Great Cranberry Island.

Going down.....

Looking back at the trail

Trail map of where we hiked today.