Camden Hills State Park

Camden Hills State Park covers 5,700 acres on the mid-coast of Maine, rising directly behind the harbor town of Camden. The park's signature experience is the summit of Mount Battie (800 feet), reached either by a paved auto road — one of the few in New England that leads directly to a summit viewpoint — or by a network of hiking trails including the 2.4-mile Mount Battie Trail from downtown Camden. From the stone summit tower, visitors look out over the entire Penobscot Bay island chain: Vinalhaven, North Haven, Islesboro, and dozens of smaller isles scattered across the water below Camden Harbor and the village of Rockport. The panorama is regarded as one of the finest views in Maine and inspired the poet Edna St. Vincent Millay, who grew up in Camden and wrote Renascence (1912) from the perspective of this summit. The park contains 30 miles of trails across a range of difficulty, from the easy Maiden Cliff Trail (2 mi round-trip) along a ridge above Megunticook Lake to the more demanding Mount Megunticook ridge trails. Fall foliage visits in October are particularly popular, when the summit view extends across a tapestry of red, orange, and yellow forest canopy over the island-dotted bay below. Day-use admission ($6 non-residents) is collected at the main park entrance on Route 1. The Mount Battie auto road has a separate toll and is open mid-May through mid-October.