Maine and Acadia
East coast… best coast?
My camera and I
I was bitten by the photography bug during my trip to Isle Royale earlier in the year, and started saving some money to buy a DSLR. Working as a Teaching Assistant in the Electrical Engineering department at Purdue for many semesters, made it so that it was a little while before I mustered up some cash to buy a camera body and a lens.
While I was saving up the money, I started reading everything photography related and it took me some time before I could grasp basics, but with every video I watched and article I read, the more familiar I became with photography.
By recommendation from my friends, who have many years of photography experience, and after reading tons of reviews online, I ended up buying for my birthday a DSLR and a versatile 24-105mm lens to get my journey in photography started.
Getting the camera and the lens was exciting, but now I had to get acquainted with it and put everything I had learned into practice. Trust me, easier said than done. No matter how much of the theory you know, a lot of it boils down to having a good eye and sometimes a bit of luck! But, what better way to get started into photography than to go to Acadia National Park in the middle of the fall season?
It was close to October break and my friends and I had already booked our flight tickets to Boston. I could not wait to take a break; with a tough schedule to start my senior year and some minor problems in my personal life I just wanted to go away for a bit, collect my thoughts, shoot some pictures and come back re-energized.
Maine – “There are so many lobsters!”
My friends and I landed in Boston late at night and we took a taxi to a hotel downtown where we slept for the night. The following morning, we headed into the city to get our rental for the next few days.
After we picked up our trusty Hyundai sedan, we set the GPS for Acadia and started the short road trip. The drive would take us around 5 hours, with a scheduled break in the middle to visit a cousin of mine who lived in New Hampshire.
The drive was very scenic, with many opportunities to see the leaves in various shades of red and orange. If they were any indication for what we were going to see in the park, I was so ready!
We reached Maine close to 5 pm, and hungry as we always were, we decided to eat. One of my friends suggested we go for lobsters (fitting as Maine is known for them) and we drove to a nearby place with great reviews to try some of them.
The place was a small shack near the coast of the Atlantic. When we went to order, the lady in the register asked us if we wanted to pick our lobsters to which we said yes without hesitation. She led us to a backroom in the shack and when I entered the room all I could see were coolers and containers filled with lobsters as far as the room stretched!
The shack we ordered our lobsters from!
After we picked our lobsters and paid, we went outside to the only tables near the shack, to take in the view and wait for our food. The sun had set and it was starting to get much colder, but when our hot food arrived we forgot how cold it was and just started eating. The lobster I had was good but it did not live to the high expectations I had for Maine’s lobsters. Maybe I was too spoiled by the seafood I get to eat back home! It’s pretty nice living in a country that is surrounded by both oceans just a few hours drive from each other – there’s all sorts of seafood.
Once we were done with dinner, we headed back to our car and put in the address for our campground. A KOA not too far from Acadia would be our home for the next few days.
Precipice Trail – What did I sign myself up for?
The following morning, we headed into a town right next to the park called Bar Harbor, where we had some breakfast and explored for a bit. The town itself, although small was beautiful and had great places to photograph!
A small sign in the middle of a park in Boardwalk, the city we were exploring.
After spending most of the day in town, we headed into the park to do some short trails and explore for a bit.
A small seagull in the middle of the beach. We were headed towards a trailhead near the area.
Once the sun set though, we headed back to our camp to sleep early to try and catch next day’s sunrise. As is customary in many of the trips I do, I was awakened quite early by my alarm clock – signaling that it was time to get ready. Although reluctant to get out of my sleeping pad, I knew that I had to get ready. I woke my friends up, we changed and drove up to Cadillac Mountain to see the sunrise.
Sunrise in Cadillac Mountain.
After the sunrise was over, we headed to destination # 2 – Precipice Trail. Now, as the name suggests, precipice trail is a trail that is mostly a vertical climb through exposed rocks, something my friend had avoided telling me, otherwise I would have thought twice (and then some) about it before attempting it.
Nonetheless, at the time I didn’t really know about it and off I went with my friend to do the ‘hike’. Once in the trail, I realized a bit too late that it was mostly climbing while hugging the side of the mountain. This made it tough to turn around and the only way was up. The more I climbed, the narrower the path was becoming and the less comfortable I was getting but what a better way to confront your fear of heights, right…?
Well, after climbing for a bit I was feeling less nervous and was moving along at a good pace, until I saw something that stopped me dead on my tracks. After a turn, there were a series of very old and rusty ladders attached to the side of the mountain, I approached them rather hesitantly and looked up. At the time, I thought there was no way I was going to climb those things, what if I slip I thought? But there was not much of a choice. I told my friend I would go first and half-jokingly half-seriously told him to catch me if I fell.
Climbing those old ladders was nerve-wracking and believe me, I held on to them with an iron grip, but I made it through and didn’t bother to look behind me because I did not want to see how high I had climbed on them. Past the ladders and a little snake, the rest of the ‘trail’ was the same and after a couple of switchbacks here and there, I could finally see the peak! We were close, and my heart was ready to be done.
The small snake we came across during the trail.
The last part of precipice trail was the worst in my opinion, this last part was the narrowest the trail had been and I had to sidestep and hug the mountain to get past the last bit. I thought that if I had made it past the ladders, I could make it past this, so I just went for it and before I knew it, I was at the top!
Halfway up! In the picture part of the metal handrails that are welded to the mountain are visible.
Although there were some questionable parts, and some sections that I had wished were a bit wider, looking back, the trail overall was not too scary and the scenery from the top was amazing!
My friend and I stayed up there for about an hour before coming back down the other side of the trail, into a parking area where we would wait for our other friend who had gone to do another trail.
After we got picked up, our friend told us about photographing sunset near a lighthouse to the southwest of the park. It would be perfect and fitting, seeing how the sun sets in the West.
A photographer’s paradise
After dinner, we headed towards the lighthouse, we were all excited to catch a glimpse of the sun setting behind it. But much to our surprise, when we got there, this was the view that welcomed us:
I guess other photographers stole our idea?
There were too many photographers already set up waiting for the sun to set and although we had arrived relatively “early” we could not secure a spot. The lighthouse was a hidden photographer’s paradise, but we should have seen it coming:
Scenic location? Check.
Sunset? Check.
Lighthouse? Check.
Opportunity to capture a great shot? Double check.
We were bummed that we could not grab a spot, but still decided to stay and watch the sun set, and although I did not get any good pictures I am glad we stayed, it was beautiful!
The only shot I could get of the sunset. You can sort of make out the lighthouse in the middle right of the picture.
Just before the light died down, we decided to go back to our campground so that we would not get stuck behind the many people trying to leave at the same time.
East Quoddy Lighthouse
The following day was our last in the area and we wanted to have a good time seeing how our sunset opportunity was ruined. So, we headed to Bar Harbor, looking for something fun to do when we came across a place that offered whale sightseeing boat-tours. Thinking this would be a good way to end our trip, we bought some tickets only to be told that the tour was canceled because of dense fog.
Undeterred by this we kept looking for other things to do, this time resorting to looking up “things to do near Bar Harbor” when I stumbled across East Quoddy Lighthouse. This specific lighthouse was significant because it represented the easternmost point of the continental US and the lighthouse itself had been there for quite some time. This sounded interesting enough and I told my friends about it. They both agreed that that seemed like a cool thing to do, and we started heading there.
I’m not going to lie, the drive there was a bit boring and rather dull and once we got to the lighthouse, other than the significance of the place we were in, there was not much to it. We signed the visitor’s ledger (which said I was the first person from Panama there, so points to me for that!) and took some pictures with the lighthouse.
Signature log at East Quoddy lighthouse.
After a couple of hours there, some clouds started forming and rain was in the forecast. It was time to get going so we got back to the car and headed for Boston. This time however, we decided to go through more scenic roads and took a different approach than what the GPS suggested. I’m glad we did because we finally got to see the leave colors we were wanting to see, shades of red, yellow and brown were covering the fields all around us as we drove back.
They were so beautiful in fact, that we stopped several times to photograph them, and this is where I got my favorite shot:
One of my favorite pictures taken a couple of hours before we flew out of Boston!
After the many stops along the way for pictures and food, we finally made it back to Boston at night, where we visited the MIT campus and walked around the city before catching our redeye flight back home.