We had plans to meet up with friends in Rockland and Islesboro, leaving us with a little free time to explore this bit of Maine on our own. I had never been to the Penobscot Bay area, and Doug hadn’t visited since his college days at Bates (in Lewiston, Maine). Researching places to hike, we found that the Camden/Rockland area on Penobscot Bay featured the kinds of hikes we most like – moderate climbs to higher elevation places with great views. We identified 3 hikes to do and found a nice, small campground convenient to all of them. And Penobscot Bay was quite convenient for meeting up with our friends.
The hike to the summit of Bald Rocks Mountain was perfect for our springtime legs. It started with a gradual incline on a cross-country ski trail before climbing onto an 1,110 foot ridge with open views to the east across Penobscot Bay and the Atlantic and north toward Lincolnville. It was fun to get the lay of the land on our first day on the coast.
Of course, the universe had its own plans for us, and some of those didn’t include hiking… See Doug’s post on Old Motorhomes.
Fortunately, the campground was right between the nearby towns of Camden and Rockland, so while Doug worked on the wiring, I was able to run errands into each town by bicycle, and also do a bit of sightseeing and reconnaissance.
We didn’t have far to go to get to Chicky’s awesome show in Rockland (see my post, Chicky Stoltz & the Charlie Nobles).
Nor did we have to go far to catch the ferry to Islesboro to meet up with Susan and Dick.
After 4 days of rain, we were that much happier to welcome the sun as we got back to the mainland. In fact, the forecast was delightful and those ‘hikes not taken’ were calling for us. We stopped in again at the nice small campground for another round of hiking to cap off our stay in this area.
With time for one of those two climbs, we opted for Mt Megunticook in the Camden Hills State Park. This mountain is the tallest in the area (1,385 feet) and the summit is wooded and lacks a view. Getting there, on the other hand, is another story! Our selected route brought us to Adam’s Lookout with long, wide views to the northeast (including Islesboro), then over to Ocean Lookout with equally long and wide views to the south and east. These included Camden and Rockland (our intermittent hangouts over the previous week) and Ragged Mountain, the local alpine ski area.
Happy with our day’s hike, and having thoroughly enjoyed our time in and around the Penobscot Bay, we decided it’s time to start moving south.
For those interested, more Penobscot Bay pix…