Acadia 2021, Day 2 – Ocean Path

After hiking Cadillac Mountain on day 1 to “get it over with” (an anonymous family member’s words, not mine), I had planned for day 2 to be less strenuous, plus the weather was questionable so I didn’t want to tackle anything too ambitious. It was, in fact, raining when we made it into Acadia, but it let up enough for my family to agree to go on a walk along the Ocean Path. The Ocean Path is about 2 miles long (one way) and connects Sand Beach to Otter Point, passing by Thunder Hole on the way. It’s mostly flat, you can turn back at any time, and you get views of the ocean and coastline so it’s a good choice for people who don’t have much time in the park or aren’t interested in climbing anything.

The Acadia coastline

We started out at the Sand Beach parking lot. The beach, shockingly enough, was not filled with sunbathers and children building sandcastles but a small crowd wearing raincoats, carrying umbrellas, and gazing desultorily out at the waves. After walking up and down the beach to admire the sand and surf, we headed off on the Ocean Path. We explored the rocks along the coast as we went, and eventually made it to Thunder Hole, about a mile from the beach. Thunder Hole is a rock inlet where the waves are supposed to rush in, make loud booming noises, and create lots of spray. It’s best visited as the tide is coming in (and during bad weather, but if it’s too bad the park rangers close off access), and we were there an hour after high tide, so there was no thundering, but there was some gurgling.

The Beehive (I think) from Sand Beach

Thunder Hole

From Thunder Hole we continued down the Ocean Path. Most of the time the path follows the Park Loop Road, the scenic road in Acadia that passes by most of the major attractions in the park, but there’s a wooded part further from the road in this section, which is also where the fog really started rolling in. By the time we made it to Otter Point, we’d more or less lost any view of the ocean. Better this day than when we were hiking Cadillac, I guess. At this point, we hiked back to Sand Beach, got into the car, and drove off to get lobster for dinner, because what’s a trip to Maine without at least one lobster dinner?

Fog on the Ocean Path