For the last three days we have been camped at Bass Harbor Campground, an RV park on the west side of Mt. Desert Island. This is a nice spot, largely because the sites are arranged as circles in the woods; therefore, there are trees on every site and there is none of that “RVs lined up in a parking lot” feel to it. Rather, it feels a lot more like a state park campground than do many of the RV parks at which I have stayed. You can see what I mean from the map below:

There are signs to greet you both as you enter and as you leave!

This campground also offers cabins and yurts in which one can stay:

Yesterday, we spent the day golfing at the venerable and excellent Kebo Valley course in Bar Harbor, one of Maine’s best. I did a post on this in 2020 if you are interested in checking back for it, but today there was new wrinkle; hole #4 has two tee boxes, and until today we have always found the lower, right-hand one to be in use. But on this visit they were using the upper box on the left side of the par-3 hole, making for a new and completely different challenge. Here’s the view from this tee box; the green (the target!) is left of center in this photo.

We started the day today by visiting the nearby and oft-photographed Bass Harbor Head Light.

Here’s the view along the shore looking in the other direction:

After that, we decided to attempt a loop over St. Sauveur and Acadia Mountains. We first stopped at the Acadia Mountain trailhead but found the parking lot full and cars parked on both sides of the road. Consequently, we decided to do the loop from the other direction and started at the Mt. St. Sauveur trailhead. This trail was quite steep, gaining elevation quickly to afford a nice view of Somes Sound:

The summit, however, was quite wooded and afforded little in the way of views:

The trail from there to the summit of Acadia Mountain, however, was extremely challenging, both steep and very exposed — in fact, it reminded me of The Beehive and the Precipice Trails elsewhere in the park. There were several places with steep drops which demanded that one trust a high, narrow foothold while throwing one’s weight up and over. Additionally, there were many spots which required lifting one foot to mid-thigh level and then using it to lift one’s weight up from there. Frankly, I found myself overmatched on this trail and would only recommend it to the young, daring and limber; I would not attempt it again myself. However, the view out over Somes Sound from the summit was outstanding:

Here, you can see our intrepid explorers celebrating their success:

Having somehow survived the treacherous and demanding ascent, and spending ourselves completely in the attempt, we decided not to complete the entire loop (which would have required managing the very steep trail back down to the St. Sauveur trailhead). Therefore, we took the much easier trail down to the Acadia Mountain trailhead and walked the road half a mile or so back to our truck. I would highly recommend that all but the fittest use the Acadia Mountain trail up and back down — only the very athletic should consider the loop trail from Acadia over to St. Sauveur and down. The trail down from Acadia Mountain follows a lovely stream, seen below:

And so, this brings our Nova Scotia golf adventure to an end, as tomorrow we return home. I am hoping to offer a few more posts before the year winds down, but in any event, thanks so much for following along!