Acadia National Park

Our weather luck improved and we were able to get out and do a bit of rock climbing.  Our destination was Otter Cliffs, some short sea cliffs with the waves crashing below us.  When we arrived, most of the classic climbs were occupied by some commercial guides, so we had to find a second option.

Right around noon, as we were eating lunch, all the commercial guides left, (their clients had only booked half day trips) and we found ourselves completely alone on the cliff.  The climbing was pretty dramatic, being right over the water in some spots.  It was calm that day, but some of the other climbers had mentioned on high surf days you can sometimes get splashed by the breaking waves.  The rock was sharper and more slippery than we were used to.  Most of the faces had been smoothed down by wind and waves, so there were only cracks and ledges to use.  One of the climbs we did was called “The Great Chimney” – One of Otter Cliffs’ Classics.  It was a large (60’ tall) block that had been separated from the main cliff by 2-3’ and up to 5’ in some spots.  It was awkward to get to the start, a very uncomfortable rappell, but it was a neat climb to have rock on 3 sides and ocean on the fourth.  
Some rain moved in and we decided to get off the cliff and explore the rest of the island.  We went for bike ride along some of carriage road network that crosses the island, then headed for the coin operated showers ($2 for 4 minutes!) across from our campground for a nice hot shower. Then we headed into downtown Bar Harbor for Thursday night date night. We sampled the local beer and wine (well, Adam sampled the beer and wine, Janine stuck to the wine). The blueberry beer was fairly unique, without the usual strong taste of blueberries. We then thoroughly amused the tasting host when Adam commented that he was getting hints of meat in his glass of wine. Finally, we dined at the Route 66 restaurant, covered in 50’s memorabilia that for once was not dramatically overdone, and enjoyed an old-fashioned milkshake.

Giant Starfish!

The next morning at low tide, we visited the island that becomes walkable at low tide, finding giant starfish, crabs (Janine captured her first crab!) and even a baby flounder along the way! Then we headed for the beach, stopping for a picnic lunch along the way. At the beach, we had our stuff all set up when we noticed a couple doing acroyoga at the other end of the beach. Janine noted that it looked a bit like Scott, a friend from Albany, but we supposed that any tall, lean guy doing acroyoga would look like Scott. But when the couple switched roles and the woman looked like Cathy, we decided to investigate further and found out that it WAS Scott and Cathy! Such a small world. So we spent a bit of time with them learning a few new slacklining practice moves, staying out of the frigid water. We even flew the most successful kite in the history of our kiting experience- all the way out to the end of the string! Next we paid a visit to Thunder Hole, which at the right time can splash HUGE sprays of water- but unfortunately at the time that we were there, it was more like burping hole. We finished off our day with a swim at Echo Lake, which was incredibly peaceful and empty around sunset. There were several loons hunting for fish while we were there; we had never seen them come up so close! We cooked some macaroni and cheese on the beach, then headed back to the campground for our last night in Acadia. Fortunately, we had gotten in our tent before the thunderstorms hit. Janine remembered how much she HATES camping in thunderstorms, yelping and clinging to Adam at every particularly loud clap.

Our verdict for Acadia- probably quite nice if you manage not to catch quite so much rain, but the vistas are beautiful, the rock climbing unique, and downtown Bar Harbor is cute. Janine still finds it incredibly odd that the campgrounds had no soap, especially since there was soap in some of the other Acadia Park bathrooms.