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Acadia National Park, Maine
At the bottom of the big blue sea, just you and me
The center of activity at Jordan Pond is the appropriately named Jordan Pond House, home to wonderfully sour lemonade and popovers, an experience which is so much more than it sounds. Throughout the summer there are long waits to accompany the slow (or leisurely) service, but at midday on a Memorial Day you can have the place almost to yourself, just as it always should be.
Not all the ponds at Acadia are as large or popular as Jordan Pond. Sargeant Pond (reachable only by trail) is nestled in the eastern face of Sargeant Mountain, only a few hundred feet down from its treeless summit.
If you had a free day in Maine (under that crisp blue sky) and were looking for a good one way hike, sooner or later you would find yourself on the Beechcroft Path, heading over Huguenot Head and up and over Champlain. On the way up from Route 3 and the Tarn, the path is extremely easy to follow, most of it is composed of stone cut stairs hanging off the side of the mountain, allowing plenty of the sweeping, quick views that are so typical of Acadia's (relatively) low mountains.
After Huguenot Head, the trail heads straight up the steep, west side of Champlain and its incomparable South Ridge. From the top of Champlain, it continues downhill for a few miles above the treeline, up towards Gorham and back to the sea. Walking downhill into the view, it is easy to find yourself wishing that the almost unending ridge would just never stop.
This is a view looking back to Champlain from the Beehive Summit, an always fun add on to any Champlain South Ridge trail day.
The best way up the Beehive from Sand Beach (the sandy strip on the upper right) is over the Beehive Precipice Trail, a modest cliff trail up to such great heights. After the rungs, iron bridges and cliffside dropoffs, you quickly find yourself with a falcon's eye view of the Ocean Trail.
If you are a long time recipient of the slideshows, then you are probably more familiar with Maine than you ever really wanted to be. Ocean Trail, Bubble Rock, the Precipice Trail. Every year it's the same thing over and over.
Still every time I return there is always something different. Familiar but different. A new angle of the same rock I always see, returning to a beach I haven't been to for years, the light or the clouds or the sea, something always different, always special. There is no reason to make me think I will not find a way to return, that sometime next year I'll be struggling again to find a new way to write a description about a familiar rock or trail or beach, trying again to justify spending all those days, all those years walking to Otter Point and back again, or just stopping somewhere between to try and finally appreciate such a place.
I have never been to Maine during the (reportedly) harsh winter but I imagine there would be something about it I would like. Maybe it would be to see the locals almost outnumbering the tourists, to see places like Thunder Hole live up to their full potential, to park right in front of Jordans and not have to wait in a line for blueberry pancakes.
You can enjoy all those things (except for the Thunder Hole one) the day after Memorial Day as everyone else heads back to Boston or Portland sometime that Monday. No wait at Jordans, no other hikers on the Beehive Precipice Trail, empty parking places at the Jordan Pond House. Memorial Day Weekend (and the day after Memorial Day) remains the smart time to visit, especially if you're thinking about cost and crowds. The summer is the summer, and the free island wide shuttle buses (which start in mid June) now run through Fall, making early October probably the second best time to visit. As for the winters, I hear it's not too busy, that Thunder Hole actual thunders though the weather can be (reportedly) harsh.
