Mansion on Schooner Head in Bar Harbor, Maine

Schooner Head is located on the east side of Acadia National Park’s Mount Desert Island. An overlook with some excellent views of the area can be reached via the Park Loop Road. Exit just before the park pay station and drive until reaching the parking lot at the end of the road. When looking out towards the ocean, Schooner Head is the small hill to your left that juts out into Frenchman Bay. It is easily identified by the elaborate mansion at its tip. Schooner Head is not part of Acadia National Park, but is instead one of the many large parcels of private land that is surrounded by the park.

From the overlook at the parking lot you should be able to see the Egg Rock Lighthouse on Egg Rock, a small island two miles from shore. In the late 1800s, people traveled out to it to collect bird eggs to eat and feathers to sell to the fashion industry, often killing the birds in the process. This lasted until the early 1900s, by which time many of the birds in the Gulf of Maine had been driven to near extinction. Today the island is part of the Maine Coastal Islands National Wildlife Refuge.

Egg Rock and Egg Rock Lighthouse off the coast of Mount Desert Island in Maine

The view of Schooner Head itself is not very interesting from the overlook, but there is a paved path in front of the parking area that leads to the rocky coast, and if you want some great views and photographs, head down there at low tide (I’m not sure if it is accessible during high tide, but it may be).

View of Schooner Head from the rocky shore of Mount Desert Island in Maine

The trail descends a good distance, but it uses switchbacks to keep the hike from being too steep and difficult. It is a quarter mile to the end, so you are looking at a half-mile round-trip walk. The paved part of the trail does not extend all the way to the rocks along the shore, so when the pavement ends, keep walking as far as you can until it looks like you are about to go over a cliff (maybe another fifty yards). There is a natural stone staircase that leads down to the shore. I didn’t know about this at the time, so I scrambled down the rocks as soon as the pavement ended.

Trail to the rocky shore near Schooner Head, Acadia National Park

A girl in the parking lot told me about a sea cave down below (accessible only at low tide), but warned me to be careful of the slick rocks. That’s because her friend was over on the sidewalk having her severely bleeding arm and sliced-up legs attended to by paramedics. I thought perhaps she had been in a bicycle accident. I have mentioned numerous times in my Acadia National Park articles here on National Park Planner about seeing two people who were seriously injured due to falling on slippery rocks near the shore. Well, this is the place. Not only was the girl injured, but I also saw a man fall and bust his head inside the sea cave, the same place where the girl fell. The seaweed covered rocks are no joke, and the dark and wet ones covered in algae are just as bad. Yellow rocks, on the other hand, have barnacles on them that provide a great gripping surface.

Sea cave near the Schooner Head Overlook in Acadia National Park (guy in the hat took a serious fall)

I was told that biting fly season was over when I visited Acadia National Park the week before Labor Day—if it was, I’d hate to see what the park was like during fly season! They were tolerable in the parking lot, but at the shore they were unbearable. The flies stay around your ankles, as if they know you can’t swat them easily down there, and from my experience, they aren’t fazed by insect repellent. I hate to recommend long pants just because of this one stop, but long pants are the only way to deal with them. Who knows what awaits when you visit, but if there are flies in the parking lot, expect a lot more down by the shore.

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