Yesterday was the first really sunny day since the day we arrived at Acadia. It was a good day to take a hike, so we climbed Beech Mountain. It is one of the mountains on the Western side of Mt. Desert Island, so it wasn't far from our campground (for a change). It seems that most people that climb it start from the north side at Echo Lake, probably because the road to Echo Lake is right off the main road and has National Park signage. We started from the south end at the end of Long Pond which is closer to Southwest Harbor and nearer to the campground, but you need a map to find it.
The Valley Trail goes inland and up from the lake rising 250' in .7 miles. It is a wooded trail and once it starts to rise steeply, there are many granite steps. We then left the Valley and veered north on the South Ridge Trail which had another .8 miles of climbing to the top at 849'. There was a bit of walking over granite slabs to reach the summit.
The summit is open and there are 360° views. Cadillac Mountain is visible to the east, Southwest Harbor and Blue Hill Bay and all the Islands to the South, Western Mountain to the west (where else?) and the inland mountains of Maine to the north. Supposedly on a clear day, which it was, you could see as far as Mt. Katadin, but it wasn't something we would be able to distinguish. There is an historic fire tower at the summit. The tower is now closed, but you can still climb up the stairs to the first landing. The view from there was even better.
After stopping for the views and a snack, we continued north down the ridge trail, part of the Beech Mountain Loop Trail) for about a half mile and dropped about 300'. We went west at the trail junction following the other arm of the Beech Mountain Loop, back up hill .6 miles to the junction with the West Ridge trail. This section had great views down to Long Pond as well as to the northwest. We were only about at tenth of a mile from the top of the mountain at this point, but headed back down along the West Ridge trail. This was a fairly rocky trail down and went back into the woods, finally coming out along the shore of Long Pond and back to the parking lot. It was an excellent hike on a warm sunny day.
From there it was back to the Seawall Picnic Area where we pulled righ alonog the shore, had lunch and generally lazed away the afternoon looking at the birds floating beyond the rocks and at the boats passing by.
It was the second night of the Acadia Night Sky Festival and the night for happenings at Seawall. First there was an astronomy presentation at the Common Ground Cafe, where dinner was also being served, followed by a Star Party at the Seawall Picnic Area.
We hopped on our bikes at about 6pm and rode over to the Common Ground for cheap eats and the presentation. Much like their daily popover breakfasts, it was a dinner by donation, with a suggested $12/couple donation (we gave a bit more). For that you got a choice of three hearty soups, salad, mac & cheese, pizza and blueberry crisp and/or vanilla ice cream—and it was all-you-can-eat. A pretty good deal and much better than our pricy takeaway from Sawyer's the night before.
The astronomy presentation was okay, but not spectacular. By that time it was pretty dark and with the help of some weak bicycle lighting we made our way to the Star Party. There were amateur astronomers by the dozen along the beach road. It was actually about a dozen folks who had brought and set up their telescopes of various types and sizes for us to look through and see what was above. They ranged from simple 4 inch reflectors on a table top mount to 18 inch diameter telescopes on big computerized mounts where you entered in the obect you wanted to see and found it for you.
You didn't really need a telescope for the best view as it was quite dark and clear and the Milky Way was quite bright and the stars were clearly visible, but we took a look through most of them. Strangely, even with a dozen different telescopes there were only about three or four objects they were pointed at: a globular nebula in Herclues, a double star in Cygnus and a pair of nebula shaped like a cigar and a ring. Actually, the most exciting sighting was the large fireball that came in almost horizontally completely across the southern sky over the ocean. It got a round of applause from all present.
By that point it was getting pretty crowded so we made our way back to camp to find Ellen's oldest friend Judy and her friend Jane setting up camp in the site next to ours. This was expected, but they were several hours later than originally planned. We helped them set up in the dark and then it was off to bed for all.
It was in the low 40's this morning, so we fired up Speedy's gas furnace while we made coffee. We were soon joined by Judy and Jane, who had been tenting it next door. We supplied coffee, jane supplied blueberry squares and fruit. When everyone had warmed up and chatted, we got the bikes loaded to do another try at riding the carriage roads with Judy and Jane. It was another sunny day and it was warming quickly. We drove to Jordan Pond and rode from there, from the Jordan Pond gatehouse and around Day Mountain, then along the east side of Pemetic Mountain, past Bubble Pond, along the trail Ellen and I had ridden at the south end of Eagle Lake and finally down the road along the west side of Jordan Pond. It was about 12 miles in all and we got back to the parking lot around 2pm.
Once we put the bikes back on Speedy, it was time for a late lunch at the Jordan Pond House where everything comes with popovers, even the sandwiches. Ellen and Judy had pannini (with a popover), Jane a curried chicken salad (with a popover) and I had a bowl of seafood chowder (which came with two popovers). We were hungry so we ate it all. Satiated and popovered-out we abled back to Speedy and Jane's Subaru and headed back to camp.
After relaxing a bit, Judy and Jane went off to the park visitor center for the evening. They were actually up here to volunteer for this evening's Dark Sky Festival star party at Cadillac Mountain. We'd already been up Cadillac Mountain almost every day in the last week and we went to yesterday's star party. As tonight's was almost assuredly going to be more crowded, we demurred and stayed in the campsite, made cheeseburgers and broccoli slaw for dinner and just relaxed some more.
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