Schoodic Peninsula Acadia National Park

Friday & Saturday, August 18 & 19, 2017                                                              Most Recent Posts:
Schoodic Woods Campground                                                         Bass Harbor Lighthouse and Friends of Acadia
Acadia National Park                                                                                Shut Out on Acadia Mountain
Winter Harbor, Maine

 

 

Our move to Schoodic Woods Campground takes us off of Mount Desert Island and over to the mainland section of Acadia.  It’s a trip of about 47  miles and takes only an hour. If you want to see the peninsula but not drive over, you can take one of two ferries from Bar Harbor and then pick up the Island Explorer Bus from Winter Harbor to take you to the park.  The Island Explorer makes constant loops through the park and several nearby towns so you can do quite a bit of site seeing from the bus just by getting off and on.  Buses run at approximately 1/2 hour intervals.

The campground, opened in 2015,  sits on the northern end of the Schoodic Section of the park.  It is entirely paved, has lovely new bathrooms but like at Seawall and at Blackwoods, there are no showers.  They are provided by private businesses outside the park.  In a brand new campground that seems odd.   There are 94 tent/RV sites and all have electricity.  Some have water and electric so be careful which site you choose if that matters.   The sites are nearly all pull throughs and very long.  There is nice separattion between sites.   But apparently they didn’t have leveling equipment because many of the sites are further from level than I expected in a new campground.   Still, it is a place we can easily stay 2 weeks, and we do. 

 

 

With some planning you can hike from the campground across the mountain to the beautiful Schoodic Point.  There are several interesting trails in the park and many more at National Wildlife Refuges and other preserves nearby

We’ve been lucky that it rains the first night we are here so we’re hoping the waves will be crashing at the point.  It’s definitely all about the weather.  Over our time here we hve seen the point totally placid so bear that in mind.  If you come over to see the point, it is gorgeous in any situation but much more dramatic during and after a storm.

In the morning, the fog is thick after the rain so we know we won’t be able to see much beyond the shoreline.  We also know we don’t want to hike down to the point.

 

 

Instead we’ll take the bus.  After a leisurely breakfast, we walk over to the really lovely Ranger’s Station where the bus stop is located.

 

 

Inside it looks like a mountain lodge with wonderful comfy chairs in front of a stone fireplace.

 

The large relief map gives a good sense of where you are and what is nearby both on the mainland and in terms of islands.
We pick up a nice laminated trail map for which we pay $1.00.   You can have a black and white copy for free but the color one is more than worth the price.

 

The bus picks us up right in front of the Ranger’s Station and off we go.  Sadly I have no pictures of the gorgeous coastline along the loop road as we drive.  Fog, fog, fog.

 

We arrive at the point and set out carefully across the wet giant rockface to get closer to the shore. 

 

 

The sea is churning as you can just barely see in this foggy picture.

 

The geology here is just fantastic. Schoodic Point is a peninsula of granite.  Although this looks similar to the Cadillac pink granite of Mount Desert, it actually has smaller mineral crystals and more fractures.   The granite is light gray with a pink tinge and cut through with dikes of dark basalt. The dikes formed as a result of the rapid cooling of molten rock.   Some of ther dikes are wider than others.  

 

 

Here at Schoodic Point, the granite was formed first as one large mass. Fractures formed in the granite were later filled by molten rock. The magma cooled quickly to form the basalt dikes. The dikes are softer than the granite and erode more quickly leaving nooks and crannies where water and soil collect. Then of course plants begin to grow and we see some in bloom today.

 

 

 

 

 

This is about as close as you want to get to the edge.  People have been swept off by unsuspected waves.

 

 

 

Giant sized glacial eratic egg has fallen into a low spot.  Wonder how far it was dragged to get dropped here?

 

 

Seriously everybody is taking selfies these days and this group makes us decide to do one too.  Hope theirs turned out better than ours.

 

 

 

 

 

 

It’s easy to get mesmerized by watching the waves.  We spend about three hours at the point sitting in various spots.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We stay until 2:00 in the afternoon  but before we leave, we walk the loop road around along Schoodic Harbor before taking the bus back to the campground.  Even the normally tranquil harbor and buck cove are showing signs of the winds.

 

 

 

The bus drops is off at the ranger station and when we return to Winnona we see one of our neighbors.

 

After sitting patiently for portraits, he decides he’s had enough of this.

 

Tomorrow we’ll be exploring The Schoodic Institute which has an interesting history also associated with John D Rockefeller to whom Acadia National Park owes a great deal.