Acadia National Park Beehive and Precipice Trails - Terrifyingly awesome treks up the mountains!

I've had a lifelong fear of heights. When I was in Mt Hua in China a decade ago I found myself unable to hike the mountain because of the exposed drop offs. My legs were shaking and I was badly scared. 

So when my wife wanted to do beehive I felt incredibly nervous about it. I quickly looked at all the youtube videos, identified all the dicey parts, and watched them over and over so I could imagine myself doing them. The parts that involved climbing up rungs were no issue for me, but it was the exposed ledges that looked scary. 

Having familiarized myself with the trail beforehand, when it came time to do it we zipped up it. According to go pro footage total time taken was 16 minutes. It was enjoyable, but short hike. A few parts on the ledges I did have to slow down but I wasn't anywhere near as scared as I thought I'd be. It was like a fun obstacle course! Depending on your athletic condition it may take you longer to do the trail. I would recommend some amount of physical fitness. For beehive, if you can do ONE full body weight unassisted pullup and ONE full body weight dip then you're good to go, as you will need to use these motions to climb up the trail (at least I found they were helpful). 

The more cardio conditioning and weight training you do, the faster you'll go up the trail and the more fun it will be. That's how I was able to enjoy this hike - by treating it as a workout. It ended up being nowhere near as bad as the videos made it look. You are rewarded with great views all throughout the trail. You can see a marsh, the beach, plus the lake. In fact it was so fun that I immediately wanted to do precipice trail next, with no prompting from my wife.

Oh one more thing, once you're at the top, you're not supposed to go back down the way you came. There's a leisurely trail back down. Take it all in at the top! 

This hike was so much fun, that we immediately followed it up with Precipice trail. During my "research" (being terrified) into Beehive, I saw a lot of people posting about Precipice as well. Precipice sounded even more horrifying. But since Beehive turned out to be a fun adrenaline packed adventure, I was ready to do Precipice. Sadly, someone died on the trail a few years ago. But we were ready and excited anyway.

Precipice is far more difficult but even more rewarding. There are ladder rungs where you literally climb straight up the mountain. Definitely be able to do ten unassisted pullups, or you're going to struggle near the end!