Exploring Great Head Trail, Sand Beach, and Bar Island in Acadia National Park
As you might be able to tell from the title, this blog post will be cramming in 3 adventures from 2 different videos mainly because I am behind in blog posts and want to catch you all up to at least our latest YouTube videos. 🙂
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Link to map all trails at Acadia (NPS.gov) –> Acadia National Park Trail Maps <–
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GREAT HEAD TRAIL AND SAND BEACH
We will first start off with an amazing hike on the southeastern side of the island with a trail called Great Head trail. As per the usual, Deanna and I didn’t really do a ton of research before hitting this trail up, but still ended up having fun…even if Blaze wasn’t able to complete the loop due to some steep rocky sections.
LOOK AT THAT LANDSCAPE!
The reason I combined Great Head and Sand beach into the same video is the fact we ended up parking at Sand Beach not knowing we would have to walk quite a ways just to get to the Great Head Trail’s trail head. It did involve a bit of a jaunt down some slightly less scenic road, but eventually we did get there.
To be fair, the reason we had to hop on the road was because their was some nesting going on blocking off the normal trail. I suppose nature is allowed to do its thing. 🙂
The trail first started off fairly smoothly, the picture from above wasn’t really until quite a bit further into the trail. Once the trail turns a bit rocky, it does get a tad more challenging as you will have to scramble some rocks to keep pushing forward on the trail. It was slightly warm, so for this hike Blaze stayed behind and we met back up near Sand Beach.
EPIC ROCKY SHORELINE
Let me tell you though, these views were nothing less than amazing. The rocky cliffs/coasts contrasted greatly from the sandy shores less than a mile away.
If I hadn’t been in a rush to get back to the family, I would have probably stopped for some lunch or at least soaked in the view for a bit longer. There are plenty of places to sit down and enjoy. Granted there were not any benches or anything, but a good old fashion rock will have to do.
MEETING BACK UP WITH THE GROUP
After my power walking session was over, I did finally meet up with Deanna and Blaze after a bit of a miscommunication. FYI, cellphone signal is practically worthless in that area, so plan accordingly (unlike us). 🙂
This beach was actually fairly busy for the end of May/beginning of June. Although it was a beautiful day, all the beach goers were enjoying the beach on the beach, away from the water. It is still pretty chilly during that time of the year. Blaze enjoyed chilling a bit on the beach and soaking in the sun while we just watched the waves come rolling in.
BAR ISLAND
Ah yes, the adventure to Bar Island. This exploration reminded us a lot of Silvers Sands State Park in Connecticut…but to a tad higher level of contrast between low and hide tide.
Silver Sands has a few feet difference, but I believe Bar Island has about a 10 ft difference between low and high tides. My only guess is that this is due to bay area location of Bar Island, but I’ll leave that up to the oceanographers…or other smart scientists.
FYI, this is also a dog friendly trail, but Blaze had been pooped from all our previous hiking so he stayed back and rested for this particular hike.
We did do a little bit of research before we headed over to Bar Island, specifically paying close attention to the tide charts.
BAR ISLAND TIDE CHARTS –> Bar Harbor Tides <–
It is VERY important to time your trip properly, otherwise you pretty much have to wait 12 hours for the next opportunity to get back to Mt. Desert Island (or know someone with a boat). The good thing is that if you get there right before low tide, you have about 3 hours to get back across before it is impassible again.
We happened to get there RIGHT before low tide, so there was still a bit of water brushing over the tops of the rocks as we crossed. It was maybe a few inches of water so we felt it was safe enough to go ahead and push forward. It also helps to wear a good pair of hiking sandals just in case you get your feet wet (not flip flops). 🙂
DINKY ISLAND WITH A VIEW!
Once making it across to the island, cars are no longer allowed to take the trail. Only trucks with really high clearance are allowed (just kidding, seriously no vehicles). The sign as seen in the photo above does specifically say you are now entering Acadia National Park because as you may know, Bar Harbor isn’t really part of the national park itself. I think it was within the last decade or so that they actually made Bar Island part of Acadia National Park.
The trail goes back quite a ways (for a small island) at about 2 miles down and back. There is a slight elevation gain as you head closer and closer to the peak of the island. I would still probably call this trail easy to moderate only because if you wear hiking sandals as we did…they can make the rocks a tad more slippery towards the top. 🙂
The view from the peak of Bar Island is pretty sweet. You can see some mountains in the distance including Cadillac Mountain (the highest peak in the national park) as well as the awesome town of Bar Island. The trees look to be filling up this viewpoint a bit, so it’ll be interesting if anything is done with that in the future or if it’ll just be left all natural.
Since we did arrive at low tide, a lot more of the rocky bridge between the two island was exposed once we got done with our hike. I could now see why some people do actually drive across to the other island.
Once the waters receded, it was more rock than sand across the shore line. Not that Betty (the heavy F250 truck for you new readers) was going to take a chance going across though. We happily parked down town along the street and went for a walk to the trail head.
CHECK OUT OTHER ACADIA NATIONAL PARK ADVENTURES
NOTE FROM WRITER
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Adventure On!
