Well, isn't this a beautiful day?

You've caught me in a place that has many memories for me.

We're in Acadia National Park on the coast of northern Maine.

I'm standing on a sandy beach in Newport Cove with the great head just a little short of me here.

Beautiful spot.

Many years ago, I used to bring my Outward Bound students here.

30ft open, pulling boats.

And oftentimes we spend the night moored off shore here, sleeping in the boats.

Wonderful experience.

But today we're going to do a little hiking.

The trail starts just a little way over here, and it climbs a bit of a precipice called the beehive.

Actually, the trail splits and you can go straight up, or you can go around the back side.

We'll decide when we get to the fork which way we're going to go.

But either way, the view from the top of the coast of Maine and the rest of the park is absolutely spectacular.

So sit back and enjoy today's hiking adventure in Acadia National Park.

♪ Welcome to windows to the wild.

I'm Willem Lange.

Today we're going to take a little hike on the Beehive Trail in Acadia National Park.

The trail starts right across the road here from Sandy Beach and goes up that precipice, about a 500ft climb and a little less than half a mile.

It climbs in a series of iron rungs and ladders.

Now, it's been a little wet here lately, so the trail may be a little slick, and if so, we'll go around the backside and sneak up on the summit from there.

But either way, the views from the top are spectacular.

Well, that's probably enough chit chat.

If we don't get going, we'll never get there.

So let's go.

♪ All right, here we are.

I just crossed the road from Sandy beach, and, I'm at the beginning of this perilous ascent, 500ft up to the summit and about half a mile.

If we choose to do that.

Here's the information on it.

I guess the beehive trail.

We are right here at the foot of the Boat Bowl trail goes up, then the ascent up the cliff goes that way, or the other one goes around the back.

We shall see when we get there.

Doesn't tell you too much about it, but we'll know more soon.

Here we go.

♪ You know, last year we were here.

It's kind of misty, as I recall.

Except for a few minutes.

Really thick fog.

We went up on Cadillac to get the magnificent view of the ocean, and we got a magnificent view of a parking lot.

That was it.

This is beautiful.

Unlimited views today.

If we make it up there.

♪ Now this is nice smooth going here.

You can see where the glacier came across this made scratches in the rock [inaudible] Well, this is the junction.

I guess.

If they go to the right.

Oh, look at those cliffs.

I’m just looking up there at those people, they're using all four feet to get up.

And some of them don’t look very happy about it.

That really is steep I'm saying No way.

I don't think so.

God that's beautiful up there isn’t it?

And the alternative is the bowl trail which goes over here to the left And it's probably in my current condition.

The better part of valor.

Well, you can see the people toiling their way to the top there.

It really gets steep from here on up.

And there are ladders and and rungs and iron pegs sticking out of the rock.

The trail was made by someone who was into extreme trails here some years ago, and it's one of the most popular in the park, along with one called The Precipice, which is currently closed because the falcons are nesting on the on that, trail.

And the fledglings haven't fledged yet.

So this is the only steep trail people can enjoy themselves on.

Some of them don't look as though they're enjoying themselves all that much, which I would not be and will not be.

But we're going to go over here and take a look at the foot of the ladders and stuff before we go back down.

There's a couple up there just on the up, and there's a couple way up on top.

[Leaves shaking in wind] All right.

Well look at here, boy.

Fantastic steps that somebody built here.

[Leaves shaking in wind] but no handrail.

So we'll go easy.

Hey.

[Leaves shaking in wind] [Poles clacking] ♪ This old guy has reached the end of the line.

I think to proceed would be a little bit much.

You know what MacBeth says he's that I'm so much steeped in blood that to go back were as tedious as to go over.

But the farther I go, the farther I got to go back.

And he didn't have to go back, I do, so I shall I bid you all a fair adieu.

I'm going back down to the flat ground and, leave, and we'll go right back around the back side, which is, a lot less steep and actually just as scenic.

Bye bye for now.

♪ That guys climbing up there with all four feet and just.

He's thinking about it oh, I'm thinking about it down here.

Let's go this way.

Well.

We're still climbing a little, but, Not very fast.

This is a little drainage ditch here, in the trail, it must be from Kief Pond, which I think is up here on the left, in a minute or two.

We shall see.

This is definitely coming from somewhere.

It's a great way up here in the wind.

You can smell the ocean.

♪ There's a low spot coming up a bit.

That's where the pond is.

♪ Well, now, what's this looks like?

Maybe this is Kief Pond.

Oh, yes, it is.

But, It's kind of grown in here.

It's becoming slowly, well, it was a tarn.

It's becoming a quaking bog, slowly, slowly, kind of hard to find.

And it would be awful hard to fish, you’d drown before you got to the water.

Well, let's see if the next pond is any more open than that.

That'll be Bowl Pond.

♪ Oh, lookie here.

Your tax dollars at work.

Well, look at this.

There's a pile of rocks that were quarried up on that hillside.

There and shot down on this cable, [Laughs] probably in some kind of cradle.

Now they're going to be using them for something.

And there's a bunch of surveyors tape here.

I'll bet there's something going on up here that they're using these rocks for.

Let's take a look.

I’ll bet there is you can see where they put them in here before.

Oh, yeah.

They're redoing a part of this trail and doing it They’re boulevarding this part of the trail, which is probably the outflow from the Bowl Pond, runs right down the trail.

Bad place for it.

So they are obviously putting stepping stones all the way up to this trail and running the the current off here into Kief Pond.

Very nice.

And, you see what happens when people walk through the woods.

They just wear away all the stuff.

This trail is incised only about a foot into the underlying earth, mostly because there's bedrock underneath here.

Like there Mother Earth.

But this will be a nice, rough but dry spot here very shortly.

Very nice.

♪ What a job huh?

I wonder if it's volunteers or employees.

Anyway, they're doing a good job.

♪ Now, here's a tree.

[Exhales] That you see a lot of at home.

This is called the Bigtooth Popple.

You can tell it's a Popple because of the flat stem that allows it to wiggle in the breeze like that.

Just like the trembling aspen.

This is a cousin of the trembling aspen.

The Bigtooth, Populus grandidentata, isn’t that a great name.

Whereas the quaking aspen is tremuloides.

I love to see them, but it's not much good for timber.

Just pleasant to have around.

♪ What we got here?

1, oh 0.1 mile to Gorham The rest of the sign is missing.

Up here, it's half a mile.

Sand beach.

We've come half a mile from the parking down below, and the Bowl is 0.4 miles more up this way.

Oh, I see, the second one is kilometers, 0.6.

Very nice.

Nice.

Well, a little longer, half a mile from the Bowl at this point.

Then the trail turns back to the right, continues on up the summit to the perilous back.

Okay, so let's try it, see what happens.

♪ Here.

That’s nice.

♪ I think we maybe get there.

You see, daylight rising in the trees usually means [whoosh] up and over.

We shall see.

Nothing like the West.

Is it?

Where there’s no trees?

You can tell where you're going.

See where you been.

Here you gotta use your imagination.

And experience.

♪ I think we have arrived at the Bowl.

A beautiful little pond isn’t it?

[Leaves shake in wind] That bare hillside over there with the rocks looks almost subarctic.

Which I guess it is, in a way.

♪ How about that?

Isn’t that pretty?

Got a few half log punch ins down here.

What a great way to save the shore of the pond.

This must be all soggy here in the spring.

But this is this is nice, [laughs] ♪ ♪ We're almost at the top.

Birch is spruce.

Jack.

Pine.

Looks.

All this might have been burnt once upon a time.

Labrador tea and pretty much bedrock.

Except for this rascal right here.

Look at him.

Wow, that is a glacial erratic.

And then some.

That was brought here by the glacier and dumped right here on top of the mountain.

And that's something.

Pieces this fall off from the ice over the years.

Oh, what a beauty.

Wouldn't that make an awful crash?

I don't do that in more.

All right, let's get up on top of this rascal.

We appear to have made it.

Oh, I wasn't sure we would.

Wow, what a view.

This is amazing.

But then we thought it would be.

A great head look at the surf crashing on it.

Cranberry Island and the beach.

Sand beach down below.

Isn't this special?

Very nice.

Not too shabby.

From up here you can see Keith Pond much better than you can see right next to it.

Spectacular view down there.

Oh, yes.

And you can see the ocean rolling away forever.

You look out that way.

The next thing you're going to see is England.

Well, Ireland.

But, there's nothing but unbroken ocean.

It's quite spectacular from up here.

♪ Well, as you can see, I made it.

Although I wasn't sure I was going to.

And you can see what we started right down there on Sand Beach a couple hours ago.

We didn't come up the ladder.

That seemed a little bit too steep.

So we went around the back side and came up that way.

And, there's pretty well shot.

So I think it's probably time to start back down.

And it's also that part of the program I like the least, the one where we have to say goodbye.

I'm Willem Lange and Acadia National Park.

I'm top of the beehive and I hope to see you again on windows to the wild.

♪