Acadia National Park Camping in Winter

On my previous entry (https://himebackpacker.blogspot.com/2019/02/acadia-national-park-camping-in-summer.html), I wrote about camping in Acadia National Park in summer. Now it is about winter camping. In February, I went camping in Acadia National Park.

Saturday I did cross-country skiing along the Eagle Lake. Trails along the lake was groomed. The lake is completely frozen. It was totally different scenery from summer. It was differently pretty. Despite the cold, there were some people cross-country skiing and snowshoeing. It was nice to be outside on a sunny beautiful day in white view. The loop was 5.6 miles. Because it rained Friday, the snow condition was not great. However, it was still worth being out there.

After enjoying skiing, I went to Blackwood campground. In winter, this campground is still open. Furthermore, it is FREE! You just need to go to the park visitor center and get a permit for free, and leave it on the dashboard of car. It is a car campground in summer, but you need to walk half a mile (0.6 km) in winter. You park a car near the road, then you need to walk to a campsite, because the gate near the road is closed.  The right picture is the tent. Looks cold? Yest it is.  I thought that nobody would camp in this cold. Surprisingly, there are three parties camping there. There are 300+ campsites in Blackwood, so 297 was still empty, though. 

I had pasta cooked with Jetboil for dinner, and had a cup of decaf coffee. It is allowed to have campfire in the fire pit if you bring logs. Since I love fire, I brought some logs and planned to have a campfire. However, I saw the fire pit and thought, "Ahhhhh!" The fire pit is buried in the snow. This made me extremely hard to make fire. It took a while, but I finally had fire. I was happy by finally having fire.

It was cold at night. The low temperature was -8C (for Americans: -8C is 17F). Even though I was in a down sleeping bag with four layers, it was still cold in the tent. However, it was not bad as I expected. I had base layer, fleece, down jacket, and shell.  Probably the key was my new fleece. It is very warm. It is from mont-bell. Mont-bell jackets are so functional and great. Highly recommended. 

In the morning, I had a cup of coffee and again made fire. It took very long, because water was frozen in the tent, as you can see in the right picture. Furthermore, the fuel canister was so cold, the fire from canister was very small. That also contributed to the long boiling time.

 

 

 

Then we checked out Jordan Pond.  I really liked Jordan Pond in summer, so I wanted to see what it looks like in winter. The next picture is Jordan Pond in winter. For comparison the below of it is the summer one. How different and how pretty! The whole pond is ice skate rink! I walked on the lake.

 On the way back, I checked the Maine's famous rocky coast line. I love ocean, because I am from island. This Atlantic Ocean is very different form Pacific Ocean. The coast is really rocky. I walked on the rocks and enjoyed the nice blue water. Most lakes are frozen, so it was nice to see liquid H2O. 

Now I did winter camping in Maine in February. 

Mr.N said, "You upped your game in winter activities."