Acadia National Park

One day, while standing online at a grocery store, I noticed a Nat Geo article that ranked the best places in the world to visit during each season. As I flipped through the pages, I saw that the first entry listed under “Autumn Excursions” was Acadia National Park, accompanied by a picture of a starlit horizon during the annual Night Sky Festival. That festival was only two weeks away, and Acadia was not too far of a drive from upstate NY.

I remember inviting a few people to join me on the trip, but no one was able to take time from work or school. In some ways I was relieved because solo travel had become romanticized in my mind from Hemingway and Kerouac. In the few months between graduation and moving abroad, I became more reclusive and introspective: I started to meditate each morning, read constantly, and hiked nearby segments of the Appalachian Trail alone. It seemed appropriate that this “last” trip would be independent.

Before leaving, I bought a tent and reserved a campsite at Blackwoods Campground. The morning after my mom and I returned from Georgetown, I started the 10-hour drive north. For some reason, I used a printed map instead of the GPS. The drive was unremarkable until I reached the Maine border, where the landscape seemed to instantly transform into tall, multicolored trees and yellow signs that warned of moose crossings. By the time I arrived at Blackwoods, there was only 20 minutes till sunset.

With a flashlight, I ate some canned food and slipped all my equipment under the tent flaps. I crawled into the two-person tent, read for a few minutes, then put on a sweater and tried to sleep on the thin fabric that conformed to the small rocks and pebbles underneath. I forgot to purchase a floor mat that provides cushioning.

In the morning, I registered at the ranger station and started for the trailhead of the “Precipice,” supposedly the most difficult trail in the park. The first section was classic bouldering which evolved into a narrow switchback that scaled the mountain face. Iron rungs were hammered into the rock at points where the trail was particularly narrow or the fall particularly steep, or both. A sudden wind gust caught my hat and placed it 10 feet away on the ledge. I retrieved the hat and pulled myself along the iron rails to the top.

At the top, I started a conversation with two hikers who had finished the trail just before me. I offered them whiskey from my flask, and we looked out over the Atlantic Ocean.

Soon after, I walked over to the trailhead of the “Beehive,” which resembled the Precipice, but shorter and less technical. On the way up I met a man named Kurt from South Dakota. He was perched over one of the ledges snapping photos. “My wife,” he started, “she didn’t want to climb but ordered I take lots of pictures.” We climbed the rest of the way together and shared travel stories. When we reached the top, I extended my flask to Kurt, and we sipped whiskey over the view. “Make sure you get to Glacier National Park,” he recommended before departing.

Once back on the road, I walked to the shore and sat on a rocky ledge. Waves crested and smashed into the rocks, sending white foam 10 feet in the air. I tried to focus far out into the ocean; I felt Europe looming in the distance.

That night, I had a whole lobster at a restaurant in Bar Harbor. It was my first time dining alone; not as bad as one imagines. The waitress brought over a cheat sheet with instructions on the proper technique for extracting lobster from its shell. After the lobster and beer, I wandered around aimlessly through the small town and then drove back to the campsite. The temperature dropped to the forties, leaving me to shiver in the warm weather sleeping bag.

At 5 am, I woke and dressed to catch the sunrise. I drove to Cadillac Mountain, the tallest peak on Mount Desert Island, and congregated with about 200 other people waiting for the event. Being the farthest eastern point in the continental US, Acadia was the first point to see the rising sun. The sun eventually appeared, but it was obscured by thick clouds that left the crowd disappointed.