Have you ever seen a photo of a lighthouse in Maine? I’m sure you have. They’re used for calendars and postcards and can be found pretty much everywhere you look. The next time you see one of these photos, take a gander at which particular lighthouse is in the image. It’s most likely the Bass Harbor Head Lighthouse in Acadia National Park. This is pretty much “the one.” The one everyone visits and takes pictures of.
For the second leg of our autumn Acadia adventure, we stopped by this lighthouse for some pretty great photo opportunities. When we arrived, we were the only ones in the parking lot. It was empty. Everything was closed up for the season, but the trail down to the rocky coast was still available to us. I don’t think they can or do close that.
I must say, as short as it was, the trail was very nice and well kept. There was lots of moss on the sides and whomever built the trail, built some steps to make the walking easier. Not that it was a steep hill or anything. I’ll get to that in a moment.
I had a lot of fun walking Laura down this trail because she had no idea where we were going. I decided to make everything we did a surprise. I have no idea why. I suppose that’s just the way I am.
As we got closer to the water, the views began to open up. The sea was before us! It was very exciting.
See that sunburst? I got that by using a small aperture on my camera, just in case you wanted to know how to get one of those for yourself. I took these types of photos all day.
At the end of the short trail was a rather steep staircase. It led down to the rocks and the water.
I’ll tell you, when we got to the bottom of the steps, we saw the most beautiful view. There are many islands out there and if you look closely at the next photo, you can see some of them.
When I looked to the left, I saw that famous rocky coast everyone loves so much.
And when I looked to the right, I saw a glimpse of the lighthouse we came to see in the distance.
By the way, I’m posting HDR images here. These recent ones are actually multiple images merged into one high dynamic range version.
It took a while to hike around on all those huge rocks. I did enjoy myself though. I can jump with the best of them. As I was doing this, I noticed tons of snails all over the place. I took some photos of a few of them and merged them together. Here’s a good one.
Eventually, I made it to the best spot for a photo and I got the money shot. The one that’s found on calendars. Check this out. I enhanced it to make it look as best as possible.
That is the classic Bass Harbor Head Lighthouse, my friends. So beautiful and so quintessentially New England. I’m glad I had the opportunity to finally see it, on such a beautiful day no less. The day simply couldn’t be beat.
As you can probably imagine, I took hundreds of more photos. I’ll spare you all the duplicates and similar versions; I’ll save them for my collection. I’ll just post two more. This one is of some sea plants I found along my path to the bottom of the rocks.
And this one is so beautifully classic, I can’t stand it.
I think I’ll leave things here. I hope you enjoyed my photos of the Bass Harbor Head Lighthouse and the surrounding areas as much as I enjoyed bringing them to you. Have a great day and thanks for reading!
Directions to the Bass Harbor Head Lighthouse
I’ll give directions to the lighthouse from Ellsworth, which everyone has to drive through to get to Mt. Desert Island.
- Starting at the intersection of Main Street and Route 1 in Ellsworth, drive south on Route 1 for 1.01 miles until you meet Route 3. Stay to the right and continue south on Route 3.
- Stay south on Route 3 for 8.43 miles until you come to a fork in the road that leads to both Route 3 and Route 102. Stay to the right to travel south on Route 102.
- Continue driving south on Route 102 for 12.72 miles until you come to a fork in the road that leads to Route 102 and Route 102a. Stay to the left to travel south on Route 102a.
- Drive south on Route 102a for 1.54 miles until you come to a left bend in the road. Continue straight (make a right) onto Lighthouse Road.
- Drive .52 miles south on Lighthouse Road. You’ll see the lighthouse parking lot at the end of it.
Leave a Reply