Bradbury Mountain State Park
I’ll start off with this: I really, really, really wanted to fall in love with Bradbury Mountain State Park in Pownal, Maine, just minutes outside of Freeport. It’s close to home (just shy of 1.5 hours away), and my hopes were that we’d love it so much that it would become one of our go-to close-to-home parks. Unfortunately, such was not the case. And while I’ve had a few days to think about our one-night stay here at Bradbury, I still can’t quite put a finger on what I (we) didn’t love about the park.
The park has two separate areas—on one side of the road (State Route 9) is the day use area with access to picnic tables and trails (walking/hiking and mountain biking). park headquarters is also on this side, and that’s where we checked in. The campground is just across the street. We helped ourselves to the wood bundles (leaving our $10 in the envelope in the box—ah, Maine). One definite positive: the wood cost $5 for a generous bundle (“a square—see photo below), though the wood is loose. Luckily, we had put a tarp down in the van and set the wood on that so we didn’t have a mess to clean up. But $5 was a bargain—the parks in New Hampshire are $6/bundle, and wood at Camden Hills State Park in Maine was $7/bundle.
Bradbury Mountain State Park wasn’t on our original summer plans, but we’ve been adapting our schedule as the summer as the summer progresses. We added the night at Bradbury when we changed the weekend we planned to be at Cobscook Bay State Park in Dennysville, Maine, when we were only able to reserve Friday and Saturday nights and not Thursday. At first, we had planned on taking our chances and just showing up Thursday and hoping for an open walk-up site. But then we decided instead to stay at Bradbury on Thursday, thus shaving about an hour and a half off the drive and allowing us the chance to try out another park. Honestly, I’m glad we changed our plans to include Bradbury; otherwise, we might have booked a full weekend here and been, well, disappointed.
The park is small—just 35 sites—but it didn’t feel warm and cozy. And unlike so many of the other state parks in Maine, Bradbury Mountain SP always seems to have a ton of availability, even with so few sites and even on short notice. We had site #4, which was rated “L” for a large site that could accommodate a camper up to 30 feet in length.
Within minutes of our arrival, I told G the park had a “lonely” feel to it—and not just because we were one of the only ones there at about 3pm on a Thursday. I just felt like there was a weird, sad, depressed vibe about the park. It was eerily quiet; by the time we had checked in, I think I counted only three other occupied sites. Sites began filling up later in the evening, and the park remained pretty quiet, except for the road noise on Route 9. By the time we left in the morning, I think nearly every site had been occupied, so there must have been a lot of later check-ins.
As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, G and I are pretty picky when it comes to camping—why we camp, where we camp, and what kinds of sites we choose. We’re the kind of people who go to nature for silence and solitude. We’re not party people in real life, and we’re definitely not in our “camping life.” We crave quiet when we’re in the woods. We like privacy and seek out campsites that are secluded. No such luck at Bradbury, where the sites, though large, are pretty much open to others. There are a ton of trees at the park (plenty for hammocking—a definite plus), but no lush growth separating the sites or providing any real privacy or seclusion. But still, the sites are large and nice—just not our kind of sites.
The natural setting of the park is pretty—tall pine, oak, and birch trees—I’m guessing the park is beautiful in the fall. Scattered around the rocks and trees were different varieties of mushrooms poking through the groundcover. I passed a little bit of time photographing a few of those mushrooms and experimenting with my camera lenses.
Bradbury doesn’t have the jaw-dropping backdrop of mountains, lakes, or coastal cliffs; nope, it’s pretty much just your average inland park. With tons of mosquitos. TONS. And I mean TONS—the Thermacell barely made a dent in the swarms, and the thick humidity certainly didn’t help matters. I wonder if our impressions of the park would be more positive if 1) it was a sunny day without oppressive humidity and 2) there were fewer bugs. Maybe?
For dinner? We kept it nice and easy: campfire nachos for the win.
While we wanted to stay outside and enjoy the fire, we were spending we most of our time swatting away the bugs buzzing against our ears and feasting on our arms, legs, and necks. We finally gave in and headed inside the van to play a few games of cribbage. Yup, we just surrendered—and we spent the rest of the weekend scratching at our battle wounds. As for cribbage, I put up a valiant effort, but G swept me in both games. I did get one great hand, though—so much so that I wasn’t sure what to discard! Ah, still learning…
Shortly after heading to bed, the rain started and persisted throughout much of the night. So, packing up the Heliopolis (our “pee tent”) was a bit of a pain in the morning—ah, how I forgot what it’s like to pack up wet tents. Honestly, we packed up pretty quickly and couldn’t wait to be on the road and on our way to our Cobscook Bay State Park…and those two nights just about blew us away, as Cobscook is an absolute STUNNER of a park. So stay tuned for Part II!