This week we’ve moved a few hours north up the coast to Camden Hills State Park. This park has been on my radar since the Nealys stayed here a few months ago. It’s our very first visit to a Maine state park, and so far we are enjoying our wooded site back in the corner of the dry camping loop. I have not yet taken any photos of our site, and it’s gloomy and drizzling out today, so you’ll have to wait until the sun comes back to see it.
One of the things that drew us to Camden Hills are the the hiking trails. The park sits on 5,700 acres of lush woodland encompassing several mountains, including Mt. Megunticook, the highest mainland mountain on the Atlantic Coast. Sounds impressive right? Well, keep in mind that coastal mountains are really more like hills, and Mt. Megunticook is only 1,385 feet tall, making it an easy 3-mile round trip hike from the campground to the summit.
Up the mountain
I say easy mainly because it was short, but the truth is that the trail climbed steadily up most of the way with lots of rocky stairs and some slippery rock ledges that required a bit of scrambling near the top. After about a mile of stairmaster-like climbing we were rewarded with a wide open view at the Ocean Lookout.
The aptly named Ocean Lookout point
From there we continued another half mile up to the summit of Mt. Meginunticook. We didn’t expect as impressive a view as the ocean lookout, and sure enough this is what greeted us at the top. Typical northeast hiking right here.
The Summit
There are lots more hikes to be done in the park, but the weather has been less than ideal the last few days with lots of clouds and fog, so we’re waiting for the sun to return before tackling another trail. Despite the dreary weather, yesterday we drove over to Rockland Harbor Lighthouse. The unique feature of this lighthouse is that it resides at the end of a 4,346 foot long breakwater — an impressive breakwater constructed of nearly 700,000 tons of granite that took 18 years to build back on the late 1800s. On the day we visited we could barely make out the lighthouse at the end.
A whole lot of granite
About halfway out the house came into view, and about three quarters of the way out we had a nice view of the keeper’s house with the lighthouse peeking out from behind.
Rockland Harbor Lighthouse
The lighthouse is only open for tours on the weekends, and because the light is situated at the back of the keeper’s house you can’t really see it very well from up close. We walked around the house and sat for a moment on the front porch before making our way back to shore.
The Breakwater
Sounds like the weather is going to clear up tomorrow so we can resume our hiking and kayaking adventures.
4 comments
Sounds like a great workout packed into 3 miles! Nice reward at the end too. Your second summit is pretty funny! The breakwater /lighthouse hike is pretty unique and much more doable than the 11 mile RT to the Dungeness lighthouse in Sequim! I’d be up for this one!
We just did the Dungeness Lighthouse hike. Lovely lighthouse but not the best hike we have ever done.
The view from the summiting of Mt. Meginunticook is one of the few sights that actually brought tears to Sharon’s eyes…
We had a similar experience with the hikes in that park – sounds so easy on paper, but the quick elevation gains really get you! Glad you made it out to the lighthouse – we planned on returning there but never did.