Mt. Desert Island

By B.J. | Published February 18, 2011

Mount Desert Island (MDI) was the ultimate destination for the Great Maine Expedition of 2010.  In our original plan it was our furthest point East in Maine, our turnaround point, the spot from whence we would begin our trek home.

Of course that was before we saw the predictions for Hurricane Earl.  As a result of Earl we ended up spending almost a full week in Northeast Harbor on MDI – which really isn’t a bad thing if you discount the whole “whoops my boat might get destroyed” aspects of it.  Mount Desert Island is a wonderful places and we could have spent a lot more than a week there without getting bored.

View from the Harbormaster’s dock, Northeast Harbor

This post is probably going to calve itself into a few – there is just too much to say about this part of the world.  The towns are charming (if a bit touristy in some places), excellent dining abounds, Arcadia National Park is breathtaking, the water is beautiful, the harbors are loaded with gorgeous boats, and wildlife is everywhere.

We also got lucky – locals were complaining about the “heat wave”.  The whole time we were there until the hurricane came through the weather was to die for – hot sometimes (unusual for Maine) and not a wisp of fog.

Mt. Desert Island has a free bus system courtesy of L.L.Bean which provides excellent access to the major harbors and towns and stopping off points all over Arcadia National Park.  This bus is a crucial part of making all of this work – you can pick it up about thirty feet away from where the above picture was taken and take it anywhere on the island (eventually).  We didn’t actually figure out how good the bus was until we got there – it’s a fairly recent development that our cruising guides didn’t wax especially poetic about.

Unfortunately we didn’t consult our cruising guides enough though, that cost us some wasted time trying to do things like laundry, when we didn’t realize there was a drop off in town instead of going in to Bar Harbor to drop it off instead (and schlepping back when they sent my pants home with the wrong customer).  Each town is different, and each town has a pretty decent set of services.

Some highlights of our week there included….

  • Hiking and walking in the park.  We hiked to the top of Pemetic Mountain among other locations.  
  • Wild blueberries.  Slowed down the hiking a lot but boy were they good.
  • Renting bikes and riding on the Carriage Trails
  • Ben & Bill’s Chocolate Emporium; somehow we overlooked the fact that our favorite ice cream shop in the universe (that alone makes the trip to Oak Bluffs on Martha’s Vineyard) has a store in Bar Harbor Maine.
  • Seeing the island from the bus; yes you saw a good deal
  • Seals swimming by the boat
  • Porpoises on the long dinghy ride to Southwest harbor.
  • And endless variety of gorgeous sail boats to look at
  • Visit to the Hinckley yard in SW Harbor, even if we didn’t get to see a boat being built
  • Did I mention Ben & Bill’s?
Actually the summit of Pemetic Montain
Arcadia National Park is crisscrossed with miles and miles of beautiful, well maintained trails.  Their difficulty ranges from really easy short flat walks to steep and sweaty mountainous exertions.  We opted for somewhere near the middle of those.  
One of the walks we did included Pemetic Mountain, with the gorgeous vista panoramic view of the whole island.  It was longer than we expected and we got head faked by half a dozen “peaks” which we thought were the top since we couldn’t see past them.  Someone in our party pointed out that these could NOT be the summit, since there was no sign kindly pointing out that you were in fact there, at the summit.  One of us was right…  
Part of this trail winds around (can I get a synonym for “scenic” or “lovely” here?) Jordan Pond and starts and ends at the Jordan Pond House where you can have lunch overlooking the pond, a large meadow and the “Bubbles” off in the distance.
The Bubbles, as seen from Jordan House
By the time we got back for lunch – all options include one of their famous Popovers which are worth the walk – we were pretty wiped.  As it turns out we made a wrong turn and went to the top of Pemetic backwards…most hikers went the other way on the trail loop because it was easier.  We ended up turning around and heading down the way we came to avoid the steeper downhill but got a longer hike out of it at the end of the day.  Blueberries were all over the place on the way up (and back down) and kept us fortified throughout.
Some of the other walks we took included the Bar Harbor Shore Path, which is a short trek around the outside of Bar Harbor – a nice walk where you can see some of the ocean and the rocks in the intertidal area and some of the outlying islands.  Hiking out of Bar Harbor through the Great Meadow also brought us through some wetlands, although sadly we were never able to spot an actual moose much to my great disappointment.
It was pointed out that spotting a moose is NOT normally something one expects to do while cruising on a sailboat, so perhaps one should be happy enough with the seals, porpoises, ospreys, eagles, ducks, etc. etc.  But I digress.
After the hurricane passed through and we were held over for the weekend we decided to rent some bikes to explore the Carriage Trails.  These are wide gravel roads which criss cross the park, easily suitable for bikes or horses.  They are…steeper…than we expected, but we got through them after some shifting lessons for the younger members of the party with shorter legs.  Because of all the rain there was a lot of runoff, and many of the tiny, almost dry streams from the week before because beautiful babbling waterfalls and streams.  Even though it was all a bit damp it didn’t matter – the added beauty made up for it and the ride was a joy.  With hindsight we should have given thought to getting bikes a lot earlier as there were a lot of places to go and the Island Explorer buses had the capability to move bikes and let you off in different trails.
There is a lot more to cover on MDI – the towns and harbors, our quest for hurricane safety, restaurants and dining – subjects for another post.
Not the summit of Pemetic Mt., but lovely nonetheless
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