Acadia Park’s Rocky Highs

Rrrrockssss! On overcast island days I sometimes imagine that the Maine coast foghorns are calling out “Rocks!” warning sailors of the dangers posed by this rocky coast. What is a hazard to the mariner, though, is beauty to the walker who rambles the coast of Acadia National Park. The park preserves rocks in many forms: great granite bluffs lashed by the tempestuous Atlantic, bold and bald mountaintops, rocky islands such as Mt. Desert Island, the bulk of the national park.

For many generations the island was the summertime settlement and fishing area for the native Penobscot and Passamaquoddy. French explorer Samuel de Champlain sailed by the Maine coast in 1604 and anchored in what is now called Frenchman Bay. He observed the nearby spare-looking summits and called the island L’Isle des Monts-Deserts (Island of the Bare Mountains).

While the island’s mountain summits are indeed bare, the rest of the isle does not deserve its desert description. The walker soon discovers forested slopes, freshwater ponds and a seashore teeming with life.

Acadia, New England’s only national park, preserves the best of the coast. Cadillac Mountain towers 1,530 feet above the surf. Acadia’s mountains are geographically positioned to be among the first in America to greet the rising sun.

Mt. Desert Island was little visited until the mid-1800s, when American writers and artists took inspiration from Acadia’s shores and popularized its considerable beauties. Money followed art; the rustic village of Bar Harbor evolved into a fashionable summer resort, complete with mansions known as cottages.

In the early 1900s, the cottagers and yachtsmen, concerned about the island’s environment, began setting aside land in nature preserves. Two leading lights in the early preservation movement were philanthropist George Dorr and former Harvard President Charles Eliot. Another philanthropist with deep pockets, John D. Rockefeller Jr., donated about one-third of the acreage of what became Acadia National Park.

In 1916 Sieur de Monts National Monument was created. It was America’s first National Park Service property east of the Mississippi. In 1919 the land was renamed Lafayette National Park, before the National Park Service finally settled on Acadia National Park in 1929.

Best first stop for a would-be Acadia walker is Hulls Cove Visitor Center, located just inside the main park entrance on Maine Route 3, between the Mt. Desert Island Bridge and Bar Harbor. Pick up maps and inquire about weather and trail conditions at the information desk. During the summer the National Park Service maintains a busy schedule of ranger talks and walks.

As an East Coast walking destination, Acadia National Park is matchless. More than 120 miles of hiking trail ascend every hill, cross every dale. Connecting trails allow the energetic hiker, with a good map in hand, to reach the summits of several Acadia peaks in a day. The park offers an entire summer’s worth of sojourns: beach walks, harbor meanderings, pond-side paths, interpretive nature trails, and steep summit ascents that require climbing ladders and iron rungs. Paths range in difficulty from easy walks in the woods to traverses across bare granite, the route marked with paint blazes and cairns.

Park benefactor Rockefeller went on a road-building binge from 1915 to 1933, financing and supervising the construction of 50 miles of gentle byways through the park’s wooded headlands and along bays and coves. These carriage roads offer today’s hiker and cyclist a grand tour of Mt. Desert Island and allow the visitor to explore both the national park and privately held parts of the isle.

Cadillac Mountain

My favorite park climb is the jaunt along North Ridge Trail (4.4 miles round trip with 1,400-foot elevation gain) to the top of Cadillac Mountain. The mountain is the high point of the New England coast and attracts scores of motorists and a goodly number of hikers.

For the walker, it’s not so much Cadillac’s height as its light that’s most memorable. Sunrise- and sunset-watching, as well as star-gazing, are superb from the mountaintop. Groups of Penobscot and Passamaquoddy use the mountain for ceremonial purposes and every Earth Day a vision quest is held on Cadillac’s summit.

Expect company atop Cadillac. A well-designed auto road with a mellow 7% grade climbs to the summit, where there’s a large parking lot, restrooms and a gift shop.

On the West Coast, Pt. Lobos near Big Sur makes the claim of overlooking “the greatest meeting of land and sea”; on the East Coast, some Cadillac Mountain boosters make that claim for its vista of ocean and terra firma. The panorama takes in Great Cranberry and Little Cranberry islands.

Access: From the Acadia National Park Visitor Center, head south three miles on the Park Loop Road. A sign directs you to Sand Beach, and you continue another half a mile to find the signed trail head and roadside parking.

Thunder Hole, Otter Cliffs

Otter Cliffs, the national park’s highest, are traveled by Ocean Trail (four miles round trip), a path that provides the hiker an ever-changing tableau of land and sea. Pine-framed views include Great Head and Sand Beach, Newport and Otter coves, the Beehive and Cadillac Mountain. Ocean Trail visits Acadia’s most intriguing two miles of shoreline.

One hike highlight is Thunder Hole, where the surf booms as it surges into a narrow channel in the rock. Incoming waves seal off and compress air inside the tunnel, creating its characteristic thunder. The popular attraction is at its most thunderous during an incoming tide, about three hours after low tide.

Access: From Acadia National Park Visitor Center, head south on Park Loop Road. After three miles, bear left and begin the one-way segment of the road as a sign directs you to Sand Beach. Proceed another six miles (a quarter-mile past the entry kiosk). Turn left into the Sand Beach parking area. Ocean Trail begins at the south end of the parking lot.

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North Ridge, Ocean Trails

WHERE: Acadia National Park

DISTANCE: To top of Cadillac Mountain is 4.4 miles round trip; along Otter Cliffs is 4 miles round trip.

TERRAIN: Rocky, wooded, Mt. Desert Island.

HIGHLIGHTS: Superb walking in New England’s only national park.

DEGREE OF DIFFICULTY: Easy to moderate.

FOR MORE INFORMATION: Acadia National Park, P.O. Box 177, Bar Harbor, ME 04609; tel.(207) 288-3338.