February 2025, with thoughts of summer and warmth infiltrating my frozen Maine winter brain, I sat at our kitchen table in front of my computer. I had a seconds clock in one hand and the other hovered over my keyboard prepared to click at at 8:59 and 59 seconds with the hope of getting us a much sought out water site at Lily Bay State Park campground the morning reservations opened up for the season.
The clock switched, I clicked and success!! Site booked. I quickly went back in and secured my dad a site across the street from us.
Six months later we arrived at Lily Bay State Park to camp for the next three days. From my very first greeting with the staff at the front I knew this was going to be a good time. Some of the sweetest state park employees I’ve met so far greeted me (and we’ve met some pretty nice state park employees so this is saying a lot). Their excitement to us staying at their park for the first time matched mine and they let me know we had an excellent site.
After helping Jamie back in and level (always a fun time) I immediately went to check out the lake access at our site. The water was visible from our site and a short trail lead down to the area for swimming. My expectations were completely blown out of the water (no pun intended). The lake area was the perfect area to swim with kids. There was a nice beach, the water was calm and the view of the surrounding mountains was stunning.
We had THE BEST three days with the kids declaring this their new favorite campground. So of course the following year when it was time to book camping for the summer Lily Bay was top of our list and we were happy to return.
This summer we enjoyed three more beautiful days at Lily Bay at the same campsite. It was hot, which was perfect.
Other then loving swimming directly from our campsite here are some of the things in the Greenville area that we visited during our two camping trips.
Mt Kineo
One of the reasons for our original trip to Lily Bay was to hike Mt. Kineo to spread some of my grandfathers ashes. My grandparents had a camp in Rockwood on Moosehead lake and this was one of their favorite places in the world. My grandfather passed away eight years ago but after a failed attempt then due to the boat shuttle being unable to run and life (kids, covid, dad’s cancer, moving) getting in the way we were finally going to make it happen.
Mt Kineo is only accesible to the public by boat. There is a shuttle that runs from the rockwood boat launch.
After arriving at Kineo we got our ninth Maine State Park passport stamp and then headed to hike the mountain.
We went up the Indian Trail and down the Bridle trail.
The Indian trail has pretty views along the way and there is a fire tower at the top for those folks without any fear of heights. 🤣
Gulf Hagas
Known as “The Grand Canyon of Maine” Gulf Hagas is a network of trails that follow a river gorge. The whole thing is an 8 or 9 mile hike or you can do the shorter out and back that we did. It was about 3.5 miles round-trip to hike out to Screw Auger Falls and back. I did this entirely in flip flops, as it was all I had and I was fine.
There is a river crossing at the beginning of the trail.
This was a great hike and we plan at some point when we are better prepared to come back and do the whole 8 mile loop to see more of the gorge and waterfalls along the way.
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