Jordan Pond Trail, Beehive Trail, Goreham Mountain Trail, and the Park Loop Road: The Eastern Half of Acadia National Park

The eastern half of Mount Desert Island contains the majority of Acadia National Park and is where most tourists will spend the larger part of their time when they are visiting. When you add in the iron-rung laden trails such as Beehive Trail, the shores of Sand Beach, and the crash of Thunder Hole what you get when you visit Acadia National Park is an adult playground full of beautiful, unique experiences.

Park Loop Road is the main road that winds along the coast of Acadia National Park’s eastern side on Mount Desert Island. The road itself is 27 miles long. For the first half of the road that loops along the eastern shore, the road becomes a one-way road. The second half of the road once you reach the Somes Sound side becomes a two way road again. We chose to explore Jordan Pond (located on the two-way side) on our first day while the sky was slightly overcast and then progressed along the entire Park Loop Road on our second day when it was sunny.

Jordan Pond, or Jordan Lake as we like to call it (it’s a big pond!), is a quiet lake nestled among the surrounding mountains of Acadia National Park. We chose to start our trip off with an easy hike around the lake in the late morning. The round-about hike is about 3.6 miles from start to finish. We started from the Jordan Pond House, a restaurant located at the southern end of the pond. We considered eating at the Jordan Pond House however the menu was expensive and we really just wanted to try some of the ‘famous’ pop-overs, which FYI they don’t sell as pick-up or carry-out items! If staying on the pond trail and not deviating we would call it an easy, peaceful hike. The eastern portion of the trail is a dirt trail and the western portion has a very small section of rocks that could be slippery when wet and a section of wooden planks that are nice and flat. Even in the overcast weather we thought the lake was pretty. Fall colors were starting to peek through, although we noticed less leaves changing around Jordan Pond than we did in other places in the park (early October). The Jordan Pond trail can be done without excursions but we chose to take an excursion up South Bubble Mountain. This is a roughly 1/2 mile fairly steep ascent up the mountain to get a view of Bubble Rock and more importantly the entirety of Jordan Pond. While the rock is cool, the view of the lake is even more impressive.

The path up South Bubble from Jordan Pond is moderately strenuous if you consider yourself a beginner but can easily be done. After hiking up South Bubble we returned to the Jordan Pond trail for a nice relaxing stretch back to Jordan Pond House. Our trek was not crowded, but this could change depending on the day, season, and weather.

On our second day we decided to travel along the Park Loop Road starting on the one-way side. Our main goal was to hike Beehive Trail, located off the road. We had heard that Beehive Trail was the best trail to do and we fortunately had a sunny day to summit it. Beehive trail is an approximately 1.5 mile long trail that is famous for its precarious location winding up the cliff-side and the necessity to use iron-rungs and rails on portions unless you are a real-life Spiderman (aka Alex Honnold from Free Solo). We are not super adrenaline junkies ourselves so we were at first slightly apprehensive but once we met the obstacles on the trail we were reassured that we weren’t going to die. That is not to say that the Beehive Trail is the easiest. There are points points the trail that feel more precarious than others and we did get lost for a second and almost walk off the cliff but we ultimately found our way up. However, if you use any amount of normal reasoning and don’t do anything stupid (and don’t look down when climbing the rungs!) you will have a more than enjoyable experience like us.

The views are second to none. While Beehive Mountain is only about 520 feet to the top and nowhere near a 14er nor even Cadillac Mountain, its views still compete with best because there’s coast in site and the fall colors can dot the landscape at the same time. As you hike down Beehive Mountain the trail winds around Bowl Lake, oh so pretty.

Continuing along Park Loop Road, Sand Beach is located basically right across from the Beehive Trail. Sand Beach is aptly named because it is the only sand beach in Acadia park. There is a crowded parking lot that will stress out the more easily stressed but eventually you will find a spot like we did…hopefully. We took some time to appreciate the waves crashing on the shore and a couple handfuls of pistachios for lunch.

Further along the Park Loop Road is Thunder Hole. Acadia National Park is good at naming things. Thunder Hole is basically and small bay eroded into the cliffs along the coast that gets battered by incoming waves that create a booming ‘thunder’-like crash when they hit the wall. The best time to witness this is when the waves are biggest, so either high tide or when it’s windy and stormy. Be careful though, cause falling down into the hole seems like a punishment fit for Game of Thrones.

Gorham Mountain Trail is located probably mid-way along the Park Loop Road. We chose this trail on our last day in the park. It’s approximately a 1 mile ascending trail providing ample views of the coast. At first as we walked along the trail we were confused because the coast was blocked by trees, but the trust us, keep going! The views get better at the top of the trail and there’s a nice cliff edge to sit on near the top! The summit is marked by a pile of stones and sign. Overall this hike is probably one of the easier ones in the park.

Finishing the Park Loop Road brought us past Jordan Pond again once it became the two lane road. Depending how much time one has and the weather we would recommend biking the Park Loop Road if you have bikes and weather is warm enough. Otherwise driving in the car is great as well. Acadia has dozens of great hikes and while we heard the Beehive Trail was the best trail, each trail we did offers spectacular views and it would be hard to go wrong…but seriously….do the Beehive Trail! Brad also wanted to do the Precipice Trail but Erin had had enough of an adrenaline rush for the day. Until next time!