This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

In touring a dozen national parks this year, the biggest challenge also was the biggest benefit: My daughter Saskia was only 2 when we started.

It could be easy to dwell on all the things you can't do in a national park with a 2-year-old. You can't hike very far, historical points of interest aren't very interesting to them, and learning about the natural world is a challenge when concepts like "ecosystem" are too abstract.

But the truth is, you don't do less with a small child; you just focus on different things.

At our first national park, Acadia National Park in Maine, that meant breaking down the experience to the smallest pieces: comparing a single pine needle to a spruce sprig, or examining one sea creature in an entire tidal pool. We enjoyed popular spots like the Thunder Hole and Cadillac Mountain, but scenic views tend not to captivate a 2-year-old if there are rocks to be climbed on.

And that's OK. The terrible truth is that I couldn't tell a pine from a spruce before I helped Saskia with her Junior Ranger book. I might have bopped from tidal pool to tidal pool, never really seeing anything if she hadn't forced me to slow down and take it in. I might not have hung around long enough to notice that the cracking noises around me were part of a supper run by the seagulls, which were dropping shellfish from the sky to break the shells on the rocky shore and eat them.

We visited Acadia on a trip with my parents and brother and sister-in-law, beloved family I don't get to see often enough. How is darting from viewpoint to viewpoint better than hanging around at one beach while Saskia chases waves?

September is a nice, mellow time to visit Acadia. The leaves were starting to change, traffic was low at the end of the month, and most local businesses remained open. Entry to Acadia costs $25 per car.

National park hike: Cadillac Mountain in Acadia

We did squeeze in one short hike, on Cadillac Mountain. The summit is 1,530 feet — the highest point in the United States within 25 miles of the Atlantic Ocean. Supposedly the views are fantastic when it's not rainy and foggy, but to be honest I loved the rain.

Directions to the trailhead: Acadia National Park is near Bar Harbor, Maine. From State Highway 233, take the Acadia All-American Road south about 0.4 mile to the Park Loop Road and continue another half mile or so to Cadillac Mountain Road on the east. The parking lot is in a loop at the end of this road, about 3.5 miles up the mountain.

Trail description: The trail heads southwest from the southwest part of the parking area, up behind a gift shop. The trail ends with a summit marker about 0.1 mile from the trailhead. The elevation gain is only about 30 feet.

There is another short loop hike from the same parking area, just east of the true summit. It is about a mile around.

You can find a map of the trails at Google Maps.

Find Utah hikes in our trail database: http://local.sltrib.com/hiking

Next national park report: No. 2, Capitol Reef: 'People shouldn't be here'

-Erin Alberty

Twitter: @UtahHikes