Hiking Gorham Mountain

Gorham Mountain, in Acadia National Park, is a nice morning's hike that can be accessed from a trailhead off the Park Loop Road, just south of Thunder Hole. It is not nearly as high as Cadillac Mountain, but the peak is close to the Atlantic Ocean to the east and Otter Cove to the south, making possible some impressive views.

Because we approached on foot from further up the shore, I first spent some time photographing red rocks and blue-green surf.

Even though there were lots of people in the area (a National Park on a beautiful day in August), in certain spots, at times, one could really feel a pleasant sense of solitude, a connection to the land, yet a bit of removal from almost everything.

A tree along the shore path had an impressive collection of boles, and did not seem to be suffering ill health from them. One near the base reminded me of a rabbit.

The solitude of the lonely gull.  No, definitely not "lonelygull15", and not fake.

The solitude of the boulder.

As we started up the trail on Gorham Mountain, the way was mostly tightly enclosed by trees and rocks. Then this temple-like formation appeared, like a scene early in an Indiana Jones film. Is that a plaque?

It is indeed.

Waldron Bates was one of the pioneer pathmakers in Acadia.

There were some "false summits" along the way, that offered nice views, but we had been warned not to mistake them for the top.

It was fun to be able to look down to where we had been earlier.  I lighthouse tour boat seemed to be playing at making circles.

Here is a very wide view from the second "almost peak" along the way.

Still some climbing to go, but it's an easy grade at this point.

And here it is, the summit of Gorham Mountain. Only 525 feet, but more exhilarating than that suggests.

Retreating toward sea level, I wanted to capture the character of some of the path. This was not far above the base.

And here's a final peekaboo from the shore path.

(I kept my camera kit simpler than usual to ease the load when doing the Gorham climb. All of these photos were shot with a Canon 24-105 f/4 L IS on a 5D MkIII.)

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