Avoid crowds by heading to the Schoodic Peninsula

We try to visit Acadia National Park every spring and fall in “normal” times, but this year has been anything but normal. Our spring visit fell by the wayside, like most everyone’s plans. This fall, we saw an opportunity, found a place (Windward Cottages) where we had stayed before, which had a full kitchen, firm! beds, and had been unoccupied for three days prior to our arrival. For a time during this pandemic Massachusetts residents were welcome in Maine, so we packed food for the week, planned to keep very much to ourselves, and headed to Mt. Desert Island, Maine.

We might have stayed other places, but we know the trails of Acadia National Park. That is, we know where to find Easy Walks within the park. That being said, it was still a challenge.

These Easy Walks are easy for everyone, and most parking areas we got to were either full, or filling up even as we made up our mind to stay or move on to Plan B.

Turns out, our Plan B for the week ended up being trails on the mainland Schoodic Peninsula. Acadia National Park, which has holdings on the shoreline on this peninsula, and features several carriage roads appropriate for both walking and biking.

The one-way road along six miles of the coastline in the park offered a great opportunity for us to peddle along on our adaptive tandem bicycle, road-biking, assured that the few cars that passed us on our visit would move into the far lane and give us plenty of space.

What had always seemed to be too much of a drive became a great option when we figured out how few other visitors come to this lovely portion of the national park. We got some amazing views of Mt. Desert from across Frenchman’s Bay.

The rocky shoreline felt very similar to the coastline of Mt. Desert. And we saw very few other visitors.

We found a number of other trails to investigate on the peninsula and ran out of time to see them all. We stopped at a small parking lot for Little Tunk Pond Preserve, overseen by the Frenchman’s Bay Conservancy where we found a trail down to a sandy beach, with mountain views.

Only as we were leaving did we see another couple. Otherwise we had the sandy beach to ourselves.

Admittedly, the quarter mile trail to the pond was not really an Easy Walk, but hiking poles made the difference, and it was worth the effort to get to the beach and the views.

Fields of wild blueberries put on an amazing show for us as we explored this area. Rainbow hues glowed in the sunshine, a last blaze of color before winter sets in.

We took “the road less traveled” at Beech mountain and saw few other visitors.

The park service has done an amazing job of making the Valley trail a much more friendly path than it was in the past, for those of us who are looking for Easy Walks.

One of the alternate paths up Beech mountain is clearly NOT an Easy
Walk!

We ran out of time to explore all we found on the island as well. When pushed to be creative in #avoidingcrowds, we learned about places we surely will return to in the future, hopefully when not besieged by a pandemic, but just because they offer solitude, beauty, and some Easy Walks. May you continue to find Easy Walks even as we head into colder weather, and Happy Trails!

Marjorie

Marjorie Turner Hollman is a writer who loves the outdoors, and is the author of Easy Walks in Massachusetts, 2nd edition, More Easy Walks in Massachusetts, 2nd edition, Easy Walks and Paddles in the Ten Mile River Watershed, and Finding Easy Walks Wherever You Are. Her memoir, the backstory of Easy Walks, is My Liturgy of Easy Walks: Reclaiming hope in a world turned upside down.