Our next stop was the Cutler Public Lands trailhead lot to hike the Bold Coast Trail. The lot was packed, but there was space for Speedy. With good weather finally arriving, it looked like everyone decided to go for a hike.
This stop was originally intended to be the third and fourth nights of the trip. Our original intention was to drive from Lake St. George to Cutler, boondocking in the lot, spend the next day hiking before overnighting again. That didn’t happen, so we figured we do it on this end of the trip.
We did just the hike out to the coastal overlook and back. It wasn’t a long hike, but the condition of the trail was awful. With all the rain, the trail, already full of rocks and roots, was now also full of mud, which had the side effect of making the roots and rock slippery. Picking our way through all that made for a tough hike. The mozzies didn’t help either.
When we reached the coast, the view was bold and pretty spectacular, waves crashing on rocks, fog in the distance and a sailboat in the fog picking its way past the next headland.
We had considered doing one of the loops to get back, however they didn’t seem to actually go along the cliffs, but through the woods. Since they were the longer routes back, we just retraced our steps. When you’ve seen one muddy trail, it’s not going to be any different on the next.
It was still morning when we returned and the lot was even more packed, so we decided to move on towards home. We stopped at the River’s Edge Drive In on the outskirts of Machias for lunch. We sat out in the breeze and watched the river as Ellen had a haddock and cheese sandwich and I had a huge portion of fried clams and fries. The haddock, according to Ellen, was good and my clams were excellent. There were so many, Ellen “had” to help me eat them.
After lunch it was off to find a campsite for the night. We first tried McClennan Park in Millsvile, but we couldn’t make any sense of it. The sites we did find all seemed to be tent sites and although we saw an rv through the trees we couldn’t figure out how to get there. We gave up and headed on.
Our next stop was Schoodic Woods, the National Park campground on Schoodic Head. We didn’t see anything available online but figured we would give it a try in case there had been a cancellation. That didn’t work out. The Park Service no longer allows walk-in camping. Everything must go through Recreation.gov. They have given up on the public so a private contractor can get its large fee for each reservation and, even if there is a cancellation, the site will remain empty. After all, the private company got its piece.
Following that, we decided to try Lamoine State Park near Ellsworth and Mount Desert Island. We didn’t have much hope as it was getting late in the day, but were pleasantly surprised to find they had a site left…and it is right on the water.
It was a nit of a squeeze for Speedy, but we shoehorned it in and have settled in for the evening.
We may be home tomorrow.
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