Tremont
Tremont is the south-west corner of Mount Desert Island, and it is the part that still works for a living. Bass Harbor and Bernard are lobster villages with wharves, bait barrels and boats that leave before dawn, and the town sees a fraction of the traffic that crosses to Bar…
Most visitors come for one thing and leave. That thing is worth it, but so is the rest.
Bass Harbor Head Light
The lighthouse at the island's southern tip is the most photographed in Maine, and it carries a 4.4 rating across more than 4,600 Google reviews — noticeably below the park's own 4.9, which tells you something. The tower is a Coast Guard residence and closed to the public, the parking area is small, and at midday the light is behind the subject.
The photograph everyone knows is taken from the rocks below, reached by a staircase to the left of the fence. Go late in the day; it faces west, and sunset is when it earns its reputation.
Things to do
The Seal Cove Auto Museum (4.9 across 477 reviews) holds a serious collection of brass-era cars — pre-1917, many of them running — and is one of the best small museums on the coast. Island Cruises (5.0 from 391 reviews) runs the ferry and nature trips out to Frenchboro, a year-round island community of about seventy people.
Inside the park, Ship Harbor and Wonderland are two short, flat loops to the shore that are the best tide-pooling on the island and are almost never busy. Echo Lake, on the town's eastern edge, is the warm-water swimming that the ocean cannot offer.
Getting here and when to go
Route 102 runs down the western side of the island through Southwest Harbor into Tremont. The Island Explorer shuttle covers it in season.
June through September, with September the pick — the water is at its warmest and the lighthouse parking is survivable. Winter closes almost everything except the fishing.
