Late summer and early autumn is a great time to treat yourself to a nice hike in Acadia National Park, a pleasing ramble over a few of the 26 coarse-grained pink granite mountains that dominate the uber-scenic Mount Desert Island landscape and reward hikers with plenty of Alpine-like terrain and far-reaching ocean and mountain vistas.
An outstanding loop hike to consider is the Six Peaks Circuit, which combines all or a portion of seven trails and a section of the historic carriage road system on its undulating route over six mountain peaks in nearly seven miles. From Bald Peak and Parkman Mountain to Gilmore Peak and Sargent Mountain to Penobscot and Cedar Swamp mountains, the route gains a cumulative 1,700 feet of elevation, enough for a healthy workout indeed.
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Begin your hike from the trailhead on ME 3/198. Take Hadlock Brook and Bald Peak trails to the summit of Bald Peak (971 feet) and the first of many extraordinary vistas. Look out over Upper Hadlock Pond to Southwest Harbor and Somes Sound, and the Cranberry Islands offshore.
Somes Sound was long referred to as the only natural fjord on the east coast but is now considered a fjard, a glacial embayment that’s shorter, shallower and broader than a typical Norwegian fjard.
The monadnock of Blue Hill is now visible to the northwest. Parkman Mountain, Gilmore Peak and Sargent Mountain, your next objectives, span the vista closer in.
To the west, Bernard and Mansell mountains appear over the humpbacked ridge of Norumbega, while to the east, Penobscot Mountain rises over Cedar Swamp Mountain.
Bald Peak and Parkman Mountain trails lead quickly to the summit of Parkman Mountain (950 feet), and views of Acadia, St. Sauveur and Beech mountains, and Blue Hill Bay.
From Parkman Mountain, Grandgent Trail climbs to the bald top of Gilmore Peak (1,030 feet), where the scenery just gets better, and now includes the peaks of the Camden Hills and the mountains around Bangor.
The rock cairns or trail markers you’ve been following have historic significance. In the early 1900s, Waldron Bates developed the first trail handbook for Acadia, establishing construction and maintenance standards to guide early trail-building efforts. Bates pioneered the style of cairn that bears his name: two base stones and a mantle rock topped by a pointer rock, the Bates cairn.
Grandgent Trail climbs to the broad and barren upper dome of Sargent Mountain (1,379 feet) and more panoramic views from this, the second- highest summit on the island.
Look east from here to Pemetic Mountain and beyond to the bulk of Cadillac Mountain.
The mostly wide-open Sargent South Ridge Trail from Sargent Mountain to Penobscot Mountain is a delightful stretch that leads to the pretty tarn of Sargent Mountain Pond.
The tiny pond is thought to be Maine’s oldest lake, the first to appear after the glaciers retreated some 12,000 years ago.
Beyond the pond, Penobscot Mountain Trail makes a short climb to the top of Penobscot Mountain (1,196 feet), where to the east and northeast you can now see all the way to Lead Mountain, and Tunk, Black and Schoodic mountains a fair distance Down East.
Penobscot Mountain and Sargent Mountain South Ridge trails next lead to Birch Spring and then Cedar Swamp Mountain (950 feet), the final summit. From this point, end the hike via Amphitheater and Hadlock Brook trails, a section of Around-the-Mountain Carriage Road and Parkman Mountain Trail.
Acadia National Park is open year-round. An entrance fee is charged from May 1 through Oct. 31 regardless of how or where you enter the park. The fare-free Island Explorer shuttle bus operates from late June through Columbus Day.
The bus is an easy, efficient and environmentally friendly means of getting around the island while avoiding traffic congestion and trailhead parking problems. More information is available at www.nps.gov/acad or 288-3338.
Carey Kish of Southwest Harbor is editor of the AMC Maine Mountain Guide. Follow Carey’s adventures in his Maineiac Outdoors blog at:
mainetoday.com/blog/ maineiac-outdoors.
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