Southwest Harbor
My Dad was visiting from Florida, and we’d already had a pretty full day!We’d taken a tour by air – a plane tour of Mount Desert Island in the morning, a tour by sea – a schooner tour of Frenchman’s Bay in the afternoon, and we needed to take a tour by land, in order to have done a air, sea and land day. We only had about an hour, and Acadia National Park was crazy.. so I knew just the place to go to get the vistas and the elevation to give my 69 year old father the adventurous experience he was looking for!
Beech Mountain is a little over a mile, start to finish, but there’s a BIG elevation gain if you go the way we did (to the left!) and head up to the fire tower first, then hit the water views on the way down. If you only have a short period of time, you can take the right side up, but you’ll miss the heart rate elevation, and what’s the point of hiking, if you’re not burning calories 🙂
Trail Stats:
Parking: To find the parking lot, head to Somesville.
We drove by the parking lot once, and had to turn around. The sign for the parking lot is literally lateral to the turn and the turn is around the bend. Once you find the parking lot, after you pass a farm and a camp, you’ll park wherever, then head to the right, by the bathrooms, and head into the woods! There are other trails, the cliffs, etc. which I have yet to do, but look for the following sign!
Distance: 1.2 miles
Elevation Gain: 347 feet
Trails: Head to the left to get the hard stuff out of the way first, then check out the views on the way down.
FMI: check out some of my favorite resources
Act out with Aislinn – resource
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