Maine Trail Crosses Sand Bar, Only Open at Low Tide

Trail explores island in Acadia National Park

For about three hours every day in Bar Habor, Maine, the ocean water recedes enough to reveal a gravel sand bar that connects the city to an island.

Day hikers can cross that sand bar and walk a connecting path for a 2.44-mile round trip on the Bar Island Trail. The trail is very popular on weekends so will be crowded.

The trailhead is located in Bar Harbor at the end of Bridge Street, north of the West Street crossing. Park in one of the spots along West Street near the intersection.

For the first 0.12 miles, you’ll take the sidewalk along Bridge Street with the Mt. Desert Narrows increasingly filling the horizon as you close on the beach.

Once at the beach, look for the sand bar heading northeast to the island. The bar is about 0.5 miles long and a quarter-mile wide with the waters of Frenchman Bay – which the narrows sits in – lapping at the edges.

While walking the sand bar, keep an eye out for various stranded sea life and tide pools. Barnacles, snails, small crabs, and starfish all have been spotted. Seashells abound.

Don’t step on black rocks or those covered in seaweed. They’re slippery, and the odds are you will fall.

At 0.62 miles, you’ll reach wooded and undeveloped Bar Island, which actually is part of Acadia National Park. The trail – an old dirt road – largely heads east and uphill, crossing a meadow along the way. During early summer, wild lupines bloom in the meadow, decorating it in a swath of purple.

One spur heads off the trail and runs for a mere 0.2 miles round trip. This was the driveway to the former home of television personality Jack Perkins, of A&E’s Biography fame. His house and other buildings on his property were tore down when the National Park Service acquired the property.

Past the spur, the old dirt road narrows to a traditional hiking trail. It will be rocky at spots.

Not counting the spur, the trail ends at about 0.5 miles at the island’s high point, offering a view of Bar Harbor and Frenchman’s Bay. Cadillac Mountain rises beyond Bar Harbor. You’re about 173 feet above sea level.

Also, keep an eye on the time – low tide only lasts for three hours, so you easily can get stranded on the island once water covers the sand bar. Your best bet is to arrive at the trailhead just as low tide begins; various apps list tide times for locations around the world so are worth checking.