Flying Mountain Trail and Bass Harbor Head Light Trail, Acadia National Park

Matty and I visited the western side of Acadia today, exploring the Flying Mountain and Bass Harbor Head Light trails.  

Although only 284 feet at its summit, Flying Mountain offers beautiful views of Somes Sound and the mountains of Acadia. The hike is relatively easy and can be combined with other trails in the area to visit Acadia and St Sauveur Mountains.  Today we focused on Flying Mountain as its a lower risk winter hike (i.e. less chance of plunging off an ice covered cliff).

The trail starts from a small parking lot up a series of steps and rocks until reaching the summit 0.3 miles later.  The summit offers great views to the south and east. The trail then proceeds over the top of the mountain offering views of the Sound until dropping back down and meeting up with the Valley Cove Trail.  The trail had extensive ice on it and ice cleats were essential.  

 

The total hike was around 1.8 miles.  

 

It was fun to visit Bass Harbor Head Light in the off season since every time I've been there in the past the parking lot was full.  Today we had the place to ourselves. There are two paths to see the lighthouse.  The first is a paved path to the right of the parking lot that provides a close-up view of the west side of the building.  The second path is a short gravel path leading to a series of stairs down to the rocky shoreline under the east side of the lighthouse.    Both paths combined totaled around 0.4 miles.