'On the Beech......'

7:31 am - Thursday - August 16th - Southwest Harbor, ME - 64º F, 98% humidity, wind 3 mph out of the north by northwest......sunny today with a few clouds, and a forecast high of 76º F.

Back on July 11th we decided to hike to Beech Mountain, only we took a wrong turn near Beech Cliffs and never really got to the top, and especially to the fire tower.  So, here we are about 5 weeks later and we still have not made it to the summit of Beech Mountain.  The map says it is only a 1.1 mile round trip hike from the Beech Mountain parking lot, so how difficult can it be?  Not too, but more difficult than one might imagine.....certainly more difficult than I was thinking.

Anyways, we finally got motivated late morning to get dressed and go knock out this short trail and finally reach the summit of Beech Mountain.  We arrived at the Beech Mountain parking lot around 11:30 am.  We got out our hiking poles as an afterthought......how much would we need poles for a 1.1 mile round trip hike?  Well, we found out pretty quickly.  There really are very few easy trails here in Acadia National Park.  Every trail seemingly involves lots of granite steps at a minimum, and often there are steel ladders.......

At the beginning

......within 500' of the beginning of the hike we came to a fork in the trail.....left, or right?  We chose left.  Our reasoning was the .4 mile trail to the top was probably steeper than the .7 mile trail, and we find it much easier to go up steep trails, than to come down them.  Fortunately, our reasoning held up on this hike......

500 ' into the hike we already have a choice to make.....we took the trail to the left and came back on the trail to the right....actually 1.2 miles, instead of 1.1 miles 

We made it to the top in about 2o minutes.  It was not very warm, but it was quite humid, so our overall condition when we reached the fire tower was quite damp......my shirt was soaked with perspiration.....TLE never sweats.....she just sort of glistens.

Finally reached the fire tower

 Picture of fire tower taken earlier this summer from SDC in July

The views, even with cloud cover, were spectacular!  We could see Somes Sound, Southwest Harbor, and Bass Harbor all at once.  Of course, we climbed up to the first level of the fire tower to get good pictures over the trees.  We could not go to the top as it was locked.....the fire tower is no longer in use.

For as long as I can remember I have had this somewhat romantic notion about fire towers.  I often thought about how cool it would be to spend a summer in one of these facilities watching for fires, and reading endless numbers of books.  Of course, that is not a job for a married guy with 5 kids, but it appealed to me, nonetheless, and frankly, it still does.  Can you imagine living with this view 24/7........

 'Pano' taken from fire tower platform

.....we also got this zoomed picture of one of the 'mountain view' cabins at SDC.....this the spot from which I took the picture of the fire tower weeks ago........

One of the 'mountain view' cabins at SDC

.....in all we spent about 15 minutes loitering around the summit before we began our descent on the .7 mile trail back to the parking lot.  In all we were gone about 58 minutes doing this 1.2 mile loop trail.......

........our actual moving time was 43 minutes....we averaged about 1.8 mph and burned just 231 calories....felt like more to me.

On our way home we stopped off at the Food Mart to pick up a few things and visited the antique shop (Dragon Fly Cottage) across the parking lot for the first time before heading for home.....

Dragon Fly Cottage Antiques

.....we spent the rest of the afternoon reading, and napping (well for me anyway....TLE rarely, if ever, takes a nap).  TLE had purchased a Red Baron Classic Crust Supreme pizza at the Food Mart, to which she added black olives, red onions, red bell peppers, anchovies, parmesan and mozzarella cheeses.  We ate that wonderful pizza outside on our patio and enjoyed the early evening air for about an hour before heading back inside for the evening

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