With a sunrise already under our belts we figured we should catch at least one sunset while in Acadia because we certainly were not planning on getting up for another sunrise. Luckily for us our campground was not too far from Bass Harbor Head Lighthouse – a quintessential Acadia spot to watch the sunset, and one I ‘discovered’ by looking at gift shop postcards (I was a lazy planner on this trip). We arrived just in time to catch the last bit of sun as it sunk beneath the horizon and just before my favorite time of day — the blue hour.  The sky was not yet quite dark and the horizon was still painted in streaks of pinks and oranges and purples; remnants of memories of the day that had just passed.

We fell into our usual routine — found a comfortable rock some distance from the other tourists, took a few quick photos (you truly cannot take a bad photo here), and people watched. I’m not sure if liquor was allowed — in fact, being a National Park I’m pretty sure it’s probably not — but it would have been a great place to sneak in a glass of wine or three.

DETAILS

Bass Harbor Head Lighthouse / FREE, open until Sunset // Located in the Southwest tip of Mt. Desert Island, this is the only lighthouse on the island and as such is a pretty popular place to watch a sunset. Apparently it is also a good place to see the Milky Way, but we didn’t venture back there at night to find out. Once you park in the lot look for the obvious trail to the left of the lighthouse and follow it straight down until you hit the rocky shoreline. While there weren’t a ton of people at the lighthouse, there certainly were enough with tripods or standing smack dab in the line of sight of the lighthouse so that taking an unobstructed photo became challenging at times. We still managed to snap some quick shots without other peoples’ heads/outstretched arms holding camera phones in our way but if this kind of thing bothers you, get there a bit early. And bring bug spray, especially if you go to the opposite (right) side of the lighthouse.