Mansell Mountain: Perpendicular Trail to Great Notch Loop at EveryTrail
So after having my first lobster roll we headed to Mansell Mountain for a quick hike before our 7pm dinner reservations in Bar Harbor. Mansell was the scene of one of the first hikes I ever blogged, but it was before I was doing the GPS thing so I thought it worth a trip back... especially since circa 2008 me seemed pretty enamored with the trail. Unfortunately I would have to say that 3 years of hiking around Acadia later that I don't think it's quite that awesome anymore. Perpendicular trail is still pretty strenuous and a fair bit of fun, but there aren't a whole lot of beautiful views and the hike gets quite easy after you reach the top... that may sound banal, but many decents are actually quite strenuous... and this is not one of those. A big part of the problem was that we missed the trail head for Razorback and ended up going down Great Notch, so if we did what we set out to it might have been a more satisfying hike.
That said, it's hard to really complain about any hike in Acadia, and the absolute best thing about Mansell is that hardly anybody goes there. Hard to believe we only ran into one other couple in the middle of the afternoon on a Saturday in July. While I think there are better 3 mile loops out there, this is a pretty good one that will get your heart rate up over the first mile or so and is barely trafficked. It's got a similar feel to the Norumbega Goat Trail Loop we did last year (i.e. hard at first and easy thereafter) but it's not quite as pretty.
So after having my first lobster roll we headed to Mansell Mountain for a quick hike before our 7pm dinner reservations in Bar Harbor. Mansell was the scene of one of the first hikes I ever blogged, but it was before I was doing the GPS thing so I thought it worth a trip back... especially since circa 2008 me seemed pretty enamored with the trail. Unfortunately I would have to say that 3 years of hiking around Acadia later that I don't think it's quite that awesome anymore. Perpendicular trail is still pretty strenuous and a fair bit of fun, but there aren't a whole lot of beautiful views and the hike gets quite easy after you reach the top... that may sound banal, but many decents are actually quite strenuous... and this is not one of those. A big part of the problem was that we missed the trail head for Razorback and ended up going down Great Notch, so if we did what we set out to it might have been a more satisfying hike.
That said, it's hard to really complain about any hike in Acadia, and the absolute best thing about Mansell is that hardly anybody goes there. Hard to believe we only ran into one other couple in the middle of the afternoon on a Saturday in July. While I think there are better 3 mile loops out there, this is a pretty good one that will get your heart rate up over the first mile or so and is barely trafficked. It's got a similar feel to the Norumbega Goat Trail Loop we did last year (i.e. hard at first and easy thereafter) but it's not quite as pretty.
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