Beech Mountain Hike

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While showing a visitor around the island and the park for the first time last week, I had the occasion to take a new (to me) hike – Beech Mountain.

We started out the day with this short and relatively easy hike located on “the quiet side” of the island.    It was a beautiful late September day, pleasantly cool; perfect for hiking uphill!   Here and there, the leaves were beginning to change their colors, as you can see from the picture below.

 

 

Beech mountain is one of the smaller peaks on this side of the island, but from the back side, it offers the best views of Long Pond and Mansell Mountain, as you make your ascension.

 

 

 

 

I don’t travel to this side of the island very often, and have been itching to try some of the hikes (of which there are many); so I was glad to get this opportunity.    At the top of Beech Mountain is a unique feature, a fire tower.   No longer used by the National Park Service, it still stands as a testament that forest fires can occur here with devastating results (see my  post on the “Great Fire of 1947).  The rock below and iron construction of this tower begged me to shoot it in black and white.

 

 

In addition to the fire tower, great views of the Atlantic, Cranberry Islands, and the Western Mountains abound.

 

 

There are numerous trails that intersect at the top of the mountain, and one could easily spend most of the day hiking them, but my guest and I had numerous destinations planned for the day; so off we went.   But this short 1.5 mile round trip hike was the perfect way to start our day.

 

 

 

A really cool link

Those of you who have been reading my blog, know how much I enjoy the bridges along the carriage roads.   Two fun and interesting things happened this week regarding the bridges.  The first was that I got to “introduce” a new friend to Acadia National Park and the bridges for the first time.   He is now an “enthusiast”.   The second was a friend of mine who lives here on the island introduced me to the website of a local photographer who is photographing all the bridges at night, using volunteers holding flashlights.   I don’t know if I’ll have a chance to participate, but the results are really spectacular!

Here is the link:   www.paintingbridges.com   If you have enjoyed my photographs of the carriage road bridges, you will really enjoy these!

In the meantime, here is a picture of Duck Brook Bridge in the late afternoon fall light, nature’s light only.  🙂

 

Black, White, and Bubble……..pond that is

When I stopped by Bubble Pond last week with my guests from out-of-town, the sky was bright and sun was high overhead.   Not great for taking pictures.   So I switched my camera to black and white mode to see if I could come up with some different views of one of my favorite spots.

 

 

I find this a tricky spot to photograph.   I have yet to find the “perfect” time of day to shoot here as the height of the mountains on either side of the pond make for interesting (but challenging) shadows.   I’ll keep trying!!

 

 

Carriage roads run and intersect in this area, along with one of the bridges.  This one (below) is called appropriately, Bubble Pond Bridge.

 

 

And finally, I just had to include a picture of a rock.   Why?  I just really liked it, that’s why.  🙂

 

Things along the way

A variety of photos from hikes taken over the course of the last week.

 

BELOW:  Monument Cove

 

BELOW:   Turtles along Witch Hole Pond  (all I had was my iPhone)

 

 

BELOW:  Frog along “The Tarn”

 

 

BELOW:  Big surf near Thunder Hole

 

 

BELOW:  Heron at Eagle Lake (iPhone photo – WHEN will I learn)?!

 

 

BELOW:   Fog lifting from Eagle Lake

 

Sunrise/Sunset

This week I’ve had some friends from Pennsylvania visiting the area for the first time.   It has been great fun sharing Acadia and Mount Desert Island with “newbies”.   In addition, they are both photography buffs (in fact it has become their second “career”), so we had cameras firing in all directions.

One of my friends wanted to shoot the sunrise in along Ocean Drive the first day after they arrived.   Fortunately the sun is rising later here this time of year (not 4:45 a.m. as it does in June), but it was still an early wake up call with the alarm clock.

Of course cruise ship “season” is in full swing now, and this approaching ship is typical of their schedule – in at sunrise, out by five p.m..

Of course another favorite activity for folks visiting Acadia is to catch either a sunrise or a sunset from the summit of Cadillac Mountain.   Since we had already done sunrise, it was going to have to be sunset for our trip to Cadillac.    So off, we went, all three of us with our warm jackets and camera gear.

ABOVE:  The crowd begins to vie for the best spots.   Luckily, no fights broke out.  🙂

BELOW:  The day ends

It dawned on me (no pun intended), as I was heading back to the car that I this was the first time I could remember consciously making an effort to see both the sunrise and the sunset on the same day.     A nice item to “check off” one’s bucket list.

These were taken by fellow blogger of mine who lives in the Bangor area, but comes out to the island often to photograph. He’s got way more technical experience then I, so I’m sharing his beautiful night sky photos of Acadia. Please do not copy or share them, just enjoy. Visit his blog and link to a website if you want to see more of his work.

Stories from home

Shooting at night isn’t easy. I had a really hard time getting the focus right on most attempts, and as I fumbled around in the dark trying to deal with technical and compositional challenges, I experimented with a variety of focal lengths, aperture sizes, levels of iso, and the length of each exposure. One of the things I found most exciting was how the camera would, over the length of the exposure, gather much more light than my eye could see. I would stand for 30 seconds or so in total darkness holding the camera shutter open, but when I would get a preview of the image on the back of the LCD, I could “see” the scene quite clearly. Depending on the focal length chosen, an exposure of more than 25 seconds would likely result in bright stars exhibiting “trails” rather than pin-point beacons of light. I’m sure you…

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A Sea of Color

Last week-end I was treated to a beautiful sunset, while hiking along the Ocean Path.  I am hoping for similar weather for the next few days as I have friends coming to visit the island and the park for the first time.   It’s always so much fun to be with someone when they first experience this special place.

In my previous sunset post, I focused on the sunset and sky over Otter Point.  In this post, I’m shifting the focus to over the open ocean water (south), and Otter Cliffs and Champlain Mountain(northeast).   (Look for the rainbow)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Portrait of a Tree – The Birch

Saw some lovely birch trees on my early morning hike yesterday.   Eagerly awaiting the leaves changing colors.   But in the meantime, they make for interesting black and white subjects.

I really liked the way the morning light was hitting the bark in the photograph below.

Sharing the Rocks

As this crisp fall weather arrives with it’s beautiful light; lovers of photography are out and about with varying levels of equipment.    We know that this time of year is one of the best for getting great shots full of dramatic light and colors (not to mention black and white).

On this day (with it’s glorious sunset), I turned to look down the rocks at a fellow photographer.   The spray from the high surf was creating a consistent mist, the sun had just broken through the clouds, and a seagull landed.   I thought “quick, this could be good!”, and snapped the photo.   When I got home and downloaded my photos, I was so excited to see the golden glow that infused this photograph.   That’s all mother nature’s light – no filter or post production on this one!

 

Sunset at Otter Point

Sunday brought the promise  of high surf with the presence of tropical storm Leslie well offshore.   So when I left my home late Sunday afternoon it was with the idea of trying to capture some good surf pictures, not photograph a sunset.   The skies were moody and gray when I arrived at Otter Cliffs, but the surf was crashing and approaching high tide.

I hiked the short distance from Otter Cliffs to Otter Point, stopping here and there to enjoy the waves and snap a few pics.   When I rounded the corner that leads to Otter Point, much to my surprise I saw that the skies were starting to clear on the western horizon.   I thought to myself:   “hmmm, if these skies continue to clear, this could get interesting”.

The time of the photo below was 6:07 p.m. with sunset about 45 minutes away.

As you can see from the series of pictures below, the skies continued to change and although I did move around once or twice, to avoid some other surf gazers, I was treated to a beautiful display of sky, sea, and light.

Time 6:31 p.m.

 

Time 6:40 p.m.

 

 

Time 6:50 p.m.