Acadia National Park

We're back! And, a day earlier than expected. The weather forecast didn't exactly lie. There were scattered thunderstorms. What the forecast didn't mention was the constant fog/mist that would permeate the entire weekend. It must have poured right before we arrived at the Blackwoods Campground in Acadia National Park because the site was wet, the trees were dripping and the hiking trails were flooded. We set up camp, abandoned the notion of a campfire and hoped for the best for the rest of the weekend.

It rained overnight on Friday, but thanks to our new sleeping bags and our air mattress, we stayed warm and dry in our tent. We woke up to a misty, foggy Saturday. Our main reason for coming to Acadia was for the beautiful mountain hiking trails, so after breakfast we set out to hike up Gorham Mountain.

The parking lot at the trailhead was empty when we got there, so we expected to have a pretty quiet and solitary hike. The photo above is Paul at the trailhead. He looks much happier here than he did when we got back down. I'll explain why later.

Notice the blue paint mark in the picture above? That is the trail marker. They were pretty useful on this trail as much of it was climbing around on rocks, not all of which were obvious paths.

The trail was not as deserted as we had hoped. A rush of people appeared on the trail right after we did, so we had to keep leashing up the dogs. Tchazo spent a lot more time off leash than Jack did, purely because it was only by risk of death that someone would want to be attached to him on paths like these. He is what could be called supercharged.

We got to the top and were disappointed to find that the fog totally covered the scenic view. It was midday but felt more like dusk up there. The whole weekend was dark and grey.

It was still pretty at the top, but since we had been to this park our first summer in New England, we knew what fabulous vistas we were missing.

On the way back down, Paul's normally highly praised Chacos were just not giving him the traction he needed on the rocks. Many of the rocks were fairly smooth and lots of them had water running over them because of the heavy rains and flooding. He had a few falls and by the end of the trek down had blood flowing from multiple wounds and was in a pissy mood. While bandaging him up in the parking lot, the people who had parked next to us came off the trail and commented that our car door had been wide open when they parked next to us. Whoa! We had left all of our money, IDs, credit cards, food and camping supplies in the car. Lucky for us, they had closed the door rather than taking our stuff. We finished with the cleaning and bandaging of Paul's wounds, the worst of which was his almost ripped off pinky toenail, and headed back to camp.

After the hike, the dog's paws were a little tender, so they opted to chill out in the tent. Their crate is the best camping supply we never thought we needed. They have a hard time chilling out but for some reason they can relax in their crate.

With Paul out of commission and Jack pretty much spent for the day, Tchazo and I headed to Jordan Pond for an evening walk.

A portion of the trail around the pond is made up of these neat boardwalks.

Bubble Mountains behind Jordan Pond

On Saturday night it stormed all night long with lightning and thunder galore. We spent a lot of the night monitoring how close the lightning strikes were and keeping track of the ever-growing puddles in the tent. When we got up on Sunday morning and saw the level of mist and the grey sky, we decided to pack up and head home. Paul wasn't much in the mood for hiking with his hurt toe and we were sick of being constantly wet. Before we left the park, we drove up Cadillac Mountain just to have one last "good" memory of Acadia. Duh. There was nothing to see there. In fact, the fog was so bad, we couldn't even see the road we were driving up. It is a really good thing we experienced this park on a nice weekend in the past otherwise, we wouldn't have realized how beautiful a place it really is. Dang fog.

On the bright side, since we had both already taken vacation days today, we have had plenty of time to unpack and dry out our camping gear before heading back to work.