Otter Cliffs Acadia National Park

by Sam
(Baltimore, MD)

I once traveled to Bar Harbor, Maine with my family. We were on our way to Newfoundland and there was a ferry in Bar Harbor that allowed us to travel to Canada, where we then caught a flight to Newfoundland.

Luckily we planned time in the area before our flight, because it was one of the most wonderful and memorable family trips that we've had. We not only discovered how the town of Bar Harbor is, but also other Mount Desert Island attractions, including my favorite - Otter Point, with Otter Cliffs in Acadia National Park.

We stayed in a small inn on the main road into Bar Harbor center, just as the town started appearing.

Not too far away was a outdoors shop that rented out equipment and booked nature and adventure trips in the area.

We walked to this center, rented mountain bikes, and biked less than a mile to a bike path that led up a mountain into what I assume was an extension of Acadia National Park. It was a nice bike path and a very enjoyable outing for very little cost.

The next day we stopped by the same outdoors shop and signed up for rock climbing. It was my first time climbing. A climbing guide took a small group out to Acadia National Park to Otter Cliffs, a rock face cliff right against the ocean. As you looked over the ledge, the waves were crashing against the cliff.

We learned the basic knots and commands for climbing, and then took turns being lowered to the bottom of the cliff. When I reached the bottom, I signaled that I had arrived and started climbing up. I climbed a bit too fast because the guide above yelled that I had far too much slack in the rope and could be injured if I fell.

But, having climbed a bit since that time, I can say that the climb was a very easy one, with large and numerous handholds. I'm sure there are more difficult climbs for more experienced climbers.

Overall, it was a great memory. Leaving the inn we stayed in and walking on the sidewalk towards the center of town, we went to a breakfast diner where I had the best strawberry pancakes with waffles that I've ever had in my life.

I still buy the dish at every diner I go to hoping it might come close to my memory of the pancakes on that day.

Interestingly, many of the restaurants were only open for one period of the day. This place was only open for breakfast and closed around noon.

For dinner we went to a place farther into town for lobster. One of the memories that stands out the most from that trip was that every car stopped at the crosswalks for pedestrians. I knew that was law in almost every state I've lived in, but I'd never seen people follow it so strictly. I found that it made walking the town much more pleasant.

On the way back to the inn, we stopped in a shop and I bought a shirt that read "Rock climbing is life". Though, I joked that it would more likely cause death if it was your life.

Overall, our trip to Bar Harbor and Otter Cliff in Acadia National Park was one of my favorite family trips and created wonderful memories that have lasted for years.