Summer Recap: Acadia National Park, July 2008

For my 28th birthday last summer I joined my sister, brother-in-law, a few of their friends and my then 8 month old niece Kaya on a camping trip to Maine's Acadia National Park. I'd never been to Acadia before and was a bit perplexed by Acadia's acute popularity given its relatively vertically-challenged character, at least juxtaposed to the lofty reaches of neighboring Baxter State Park and the White Mountains. Nonetheless I was excited to spend my annual solar rotation over beer and roasted marshmellows under a boundless star-studded Northern sky and in proper company. It was also Kaya's inaugural camping trip. One of my sister's friends turned co-conspirator and I also hoped to make successful contact with an intelligent alien race using makeshift tinfoil "conductor" hats. No such luck (not enough foil or Coors Light?), but I did learn to wonderful surprise that elevation ain't everything - Acadia is the IED for real (click on the photo to the right for proof).

Trying to get the most out of the day I picked an 11 or so mile circular route that would take me from Blackwoods Campground to Acadia's signature landmark, Otter Cliff (photo at top of post), Thunder Hole and to the summits of The Beehive, Champlain Mountain, Huguenot Head, Dorr Mountain and the highest point on the Eastern seaboard, 1,530' Cadillac Mountain, respectively. Acadia is supposedly the first point the sun rises in the US and I made sure to catch dawn on the shore near the campground. What a jawdropper, photo below, upper left. While being a park heavily trafficked by tourists using the expansive Park shuttle system Acadia also has no shortage of trails with rugged ascents and daunting scrambles. My personal favorite was the Beehive with its ludicrously narrow ledges and stomach-churning exposure (photos: right, below). Ludicrous!

So what Acadia lacks in elevation it more than makes up for in sharp reliefs from sea-level to summit. Figure A: check out the poorly cropped photo to the right of me descending Champlain Mountain. The camera was tilted on a rock when I took the photo - I rotated it later to show the actual gradient of the slope (trees growing vertically for reference). Despite being some 4,000 feet lower than Adirondack high peaks the feeling on Acadia's summits, notably the southern ridge of Cadillac Mountain, was similar to the feeling of being above treeline in the Adirondacks: boreal vegetation, exposed rocky ridges and unending views. Oh, and with the added novelty of the Atlantic Ocean in full view.

There was a funny moment when I emerged alone from the punishingly steep col between Cadillac and Dorr Mountain onto the summit of Cadillac, only to be surrounded by literally hundreds of tourists who had driven up the autoroad to the top. Initially it inspired mixed feelings of accomplishment and resentment at the overdevelopment of wilderness but that quickly gave way to gluttonous euphoria after raiding the summit gift shop for ice cold PowerAde and Snickers ice cream bars - a scaled down Mount Washington experience. The final trek down the southern ridge of Cadillac back to Blackwoods Campground was otherwordly; the ocean far below dotted with glaciated stepping stones for giants, the sun's waning rays taking a final waltz on its slowly calming surface.

Whether you're an overweight fannypack-rocking tourist, a hiker or rock climber seeking punishing trails and cliffs with the ocean roaring beneath the magic of Acadia truly lies in its variety: few places rival how much it offers in such little area. Even Kaya couldn't complain bundled inside her tent. And maybe...just maybe, you will make Contact.

But you don't have to take my word for it.