On our first full day at Acadia NP, we hiked the Gorham Mountain Loop. At one point, you come to a an intersecting trail with the option to do a short out and back to a small lake. Fortunately, it was a fairly short distance, otherwise I’m not sure any of us would have thought it was worth the extra effort to see something called “The Bowl”.

Actually, it is interesting that I use the description of “extra effort” because it was only 0.2 miles and about 60 feet elevation gain. So really, not much extra effort (we hiked about 6 miles that day). But it really wasn’t one of our “things to see” that day, and that definitely changes our perspective. Thankfully, we had at least a little bit of an adventurous spirit so we did make the “extra effort”. As it is said, life happens when you least expect it.