Tag Archives: acadia-national-park

Acadia’s Island Explorer carries record 503,000 passengers

Acadia National Park and supporters appear to be succeeding in their campaign to persuade visitors to leave behind their cars when they enter the park.

Island Explorer bus in Acadia National Park

While the Island Explorer bus is fare-free, be sure to get an Acadia National Park visitor pass to help support that and other park services. (NPS photo)

According to new federal statistics, the Island Explorer, the park’s fare-free shuttle system, carried a record 503,224 passengers in 2014. It was the first time the system cracked 500,000 passengers for its estimated 3.5-month season of operation.

“The bus ridership was way up this year,” said Stuart West, chief ranger for Acadia National Park, in an e-mail. He referred questions about Island Explorer numbers to Paul Murphy, general manager for Downeast Transportation, Inc., which runs the Acadia bus shuttle.

The numbers for the bus system came as the Maine national park is on pace to attract about 2.7 million visitors this calendar year, the most in nearly 20 years, the federal statistics said.

The bus passenger statistics, made available on Tuesday on a National Park Service web site, show that passengers on the shuttle system increased by about 15 percent from 438,737 in 2012.

Island Explorer operates from late June through Columbus Day. The propane-powered buses have run since 1999, or 16 years, carrying 141,000 riders the first year. Continue reading →

Halloween treat: Acadia National Park-themed pumpkins

The last of the fall foliage may be gone and Halloween is around the corner, but Acadia, as always, is on our mind.

So why not combine one of our favorite holidays with thoughts of our favorite national park, and come up with something different for our annual jack-o-lantern carvings?

Acadia National Park and jack-o-lantern

To celebrate Halloween this year, Acadia on My Mind decided to carve Bubble-Rock-o-lantern, Falcon-o-lantern and Arrowhead-o-lantern (the shape of the National Park Service logo).

We call the trio Acadia-o-lanterns, and individually, there’s Bubble-Rock-o-lantern, Falcon-o-lantern (in honor of Hawk Watch’s 20th anniversary, with the season ending on Halloween, 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. atop Cadillac, weather permitting!), and Arrowhead-o-lantern (the shape of the National Park Service logo).

We may also do a Smokey-o-lantern, in honor of Smokey Bear’s 78th birthday this year. It would also serve as a reminder of the importance of fire prevention, since this month 75 years ago was the Fire of 1947 that devastated Acadia and Mount Desert Island. See the Smokey Bear pumpkin carving pattern at the end of this blog post, courtesy of the Virginia Department of Forestry.

No one can confuse our pumpkins with anything Martha Stewart might create for Halloween, or our carving skills with that of Edwin Hawkes, a Bar Harbor master bird carver who volunteers at Hawk Watch on top of Cadillac.

But if we may say so ourselves, the Acadia National Park-themed jack-o-lanterns are a fun way to celebrate Halloween, while keeping Acadia top of mind even in the off-season. Continue reading →

Acadia National Park visitors most in nearly 20 years

Acadia National Park is on pace to attract the most visitors in about 20 years, new federal statistics indicate.

According to new statistics from the National Park Service, total visitors to the Maine national park jumped by 4.3 percent through September to 2.202 million, the largest percentage increase since the end of the recession in 2010, possibly partly because of an improving economy, good weather and a burst of positive national publicity.

Bass Harbor Lighthouse in Acadia National Park

Moon rises near Bass Harbor Lighthouse. (Photo by Greg Saulmon)

“The stellar weather this year definitely had a hand in the high visitation,” Stuart West, chief ranger, said in an e-mail. “Since the bulk of our visitors are within a day’s travel, the park’s visitation is usually reflective of the weather.”

People who arrive on cruise ships also played a role in the increase, West said.

Acadia National Park visitors are on track to total around 2.7 million visitors this calendar year, the most in nearly 20 years, judging by the number of visitors for the last three months in some prior years, according to the federal statistics .

“Cruise ships, weather, media attention, better economy,” said Charlie Jacobi, natural resource specialist for Acadia National Park, listing the reasons for the jump in visitors.

Camping this summer at Acadia National Park also increased substantially.

Visitors to Mount Desert Island – the location for most of the park – increased by 5.3 percent through September, according to statistics provided by the National Park Service.

A total of 2.202 million people visited  through September to all parts of the park, up from 2.111 million in 2013.

There were 1.978 million visitors to Mount Desert Island, an increase from 1.878 million in 2013. Continue reading →

Hawk Watch inspires, changes lives at Acadia National Park

From high atop Cadillac Mountain in Acadia National Park, volunteers and scientists are marking a big milestone this year at perhaps one of the best spots to watch migrating hawks, falcons and other raptors in North America.

The annual Hawk Watch program on the mountain peak is marking 20 years of operation at the Maine national park.

Angi King Johnston, science associate at the Schoodic Institute, leads hawk watch at Acadia National Park

Angi King-Johnston, science associate at the Schoodic Institute at Acadia National Park, peers through binoculars over Frenchman Bay during Hawk Watch on Cadillac Mountain.

Located off the Cadillac North Ridge Trail close to the 1,530-foot summit, the viewing area is free to everyone and open from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. each day, weather permitting, until Oct. 31.

As the raptors soar over Frenchman Bay, amateur bird watchers or just regular people help spot the birds and specialists identify or confirm the species.

Angi King-Johnston, science associate at the Schoodic Institute at Acadia National Park and count compiler for the program, said Hawk Watch shows the beauty of citizens taking part in a science project.

“It’s the brilliance of Hawk Watch,” she said, standing over Frenchman Bay one day at the end of September. “I could not do my job without all the extra help.”

Hawk Watch recently became a collaborative effort between the park’s interpretive division and the institute’s bird ecology program. Continue reading →

Running down a dream at Acadia National Park

Whether you ran the  MDI Marathon to set a personal record or just to finish, or whether you prefer easy jogs along carriage roads and village connector trails, Acadia National Park and surrounding communities offer a runner’s paradise.

Acadia Half Marathon lobster

Only in Maine would a lobster wave runners to the finish line. The MDI YMCA’s Acadia Half Marathon includes the Park Loop Road in its route.

Where else can you carve out a personal running route that could include a jaunt along the ocean, through piney woods and even up a small mountain, all within the borders of a national park?

And where else can you be cheered on to the finish by a person in a lobster costume (Acadia Half Marathon in June), or earn a finisher’s medal in the shape of a lobster claw (Mount Desert Island Marathon and associated races on Oct. 19)?

MDI Marathon lobster claw finisher's medal

Would you run 26.2 miles for this bling? MDI Marathon’s 2014 finisher’s medal. (Photo courtesy of MDI Marathon)

Runner’s World magazine recently listed Acadia National Park first out of “10 Can’t-Miss Running Adventures,” and has previously called MDI Marathon the “most scenic” and runner-up for best overall marathon. And in 2012, MDI Marathon was selected as one of the 100 best races in North America by www.bestroadraces.com.

Beyond the magnificent scenery and the fun lobster themes, there’s a community-minded purpose to races on Mount Desert Island, as well as a sense of history. Continue reading →

Fall foliage in Acadia National Park a leaf peeper’s delight

SEE 2015 FALL FOLIAGE POST HERE

UPDATE 10/8/14: It’s official, peak foliage is arriving in the Acadia region, according to the latest weekly report on the state’s foliage Web site. See the link to the report, below, as well as links to some new live Web cams with views toward foliage on the Bubbles and elsewhere.

The brilliant fall foliage of Acadia National Park puts it at the top of many a list, for everyone from renowned national parks photographer QT Luong to domestic diva Martha Stewart, from Backpacker Magazine to National Parks Traveler to the Wilderness Society.

Otter Cove in Acadia National Park

The fall colors of Acadia National Park contrast with the dark tidal flats exposed at Otter Cove. Cadillac and Dorr are in the background. (All photos by QT Luong/terragalleria.com all rights reserved)

Luong called Acadia’s autumn colors “some of the most beautiful fall foliage on the East Coast,” in an online magazine, The Active Times. Stewart featured an October hike up Parkman Mountain on her Martha blog a few years ago and described the views as “amazingly beautiful!”

Backpacker Magazine last month listed Acadia as No. 1 out of “12 amazing fall foliage destinations,” while National Parks Traveler has included Acadia in a list of top 10 contenders for best foliage in all of the national parks and featured the park in this fall’s “Essential Park Guide.”

And just a couple of weeks ago, the Wilderness Society included Acadia in its “15 national parks for fall color.”

QT Luong and Acadia National Park fall foliage

Fall colors shine through even on a rainy day in autumn in Acadia National Park.

If you feast your eyes on some of the Acadia fall foliage photos taken over the years by Luong and republished in this blog post, you’ll see why this national park is on everyone’s favorites list.

Luong, who was featured in Ken Burns’ “The National Parks: America’s Best Idea” as the first photographer to capture all the parks in large format, includes 46 photos of Acadia fall colors on his Web site, www.terragalleria.com. And he recently updated his blog post, “Guide to Fall Foliage Color in the National Parks,” which includes a section on Acadia.

Is it peak yet?

When’s the best time to get peak fall foliage in Acadia National Park? Usually mid-October, although it can range from the first to the third week of October, according to the park’s answers to frequently asked questions. The official Maine foliage Web site shows a 5-year history of when the peak occurred in various parts of the state, and features weekly foliage updates this time of year. This week, according to the Maine foliage site, Acadia is close to peak.

You can check an official Acadia Web cam on McFarland Hill for how far along the foliage is. While the cam is to help monitor air quality, it does include the top of some trees in its view. There are also links to Bar Harboar area live Web cams for a peek at foliage toward the Bubbles, around Bar Harbor and other locales.

Continue reading →

Dogs have best friend in Acadia National Park

When Nicole Ramos hikes in Acadia National Park, she is elated she can bring Lucy, her Jack Russell Terrier.

Nicole Ramos likes to hike in Acadia with her Jack Russell Terrier

Nicole Ramos hikes in Acadia National Park with Lucy, her Jack Russell Terrier.

Otherwise, she is unsure of what she would do. “I’d probably be disappointed and maybe have to go somewhere else,” said Ramos, 35, of Camden, Me., while starting a hike with Lucy along the Asticou & Jordan Pond Path in Acadia.

Of the 59 national parks, Acadia is in the minority in keeping dogs and owners together on hiking trails. In fact, Acadia is among only a few national parks – Shenandoah in Virginia is another – that allow dogs and other pets on trails, as long as they are leashed, according to the National Park Service.

When they plan a trip to Acadia, dog owners are generally happy to discover that they don’t need to leave their pets at home or place them in a kennel if they want to hike.

Todd Long and his two dogs in Acadia National Park.

Todd Long is shown walking on Cadillac Mountain with his two Jack Russell Terriers, Chelsea and Daisy. Long and his dogs visited Acadia National Park for the first time.

“I couldn’t put them in a kennel,” said Todd Long, a water well service contractor from Brevard, N.C., who was walking on the Cadillac Summit Loop Trail with Chelsea and Daisy, his two Jack Russell Terriers, during his first-ever visit to Acadia.

“They are too spoiled. They are used to being with me,” said Long.

(See Acadia on My Mind’s new page for Top 5 hikes for dogs)

Continue reading →

Reopening the historic vistas of Acadia National Park

UPDATE 12/11/14: Added links to Acadia National Park Service page showing all historic views being restored, and new Friends of Acadia article on the project, at bottom of article.

For the first time in years, there’s once again a spectacular view at Schooner Head Overlook in Acadia National Park, out toward Egg Rock and its lighthouse, and across Frenchman Bay to Schoodic Peninsula.

Schooner Head Overlook view blocked

BEFORE – This was one of up to 100 trees blocking the view from Schooner Head Overlook.

On a recent Monday, with chainsaw in hand, Charlie Sanborn took down one of the last of the up to 100 trees blocking that easterly view. As he, Earl Smith, Ryan Meddaugh and Curtis Emerson, all part of the Acadia road maintenance crew, wrapped up for the afternoon, they stepped back and admired their handiwork.

Schooner Head Overlook panoramic view

AFTER – Taken from the same exact spot as the “before” picture, under partly sunny skies the following day, with the now-open view to Egg Rock and its lighthouse, and across Frenchman Bay to Schoodic Peninsula.

“It’s been a long time” since the view was visible, said Sanborn. “You couldn’t see the lighthouse before,” said Smith. The crew returned the next day to expand the vista toward Champlain’s Precipice, at the western end of the overlook parking lot.

Opening back up the panorama from Schooner Head Overlook is part of a grand plan to rehabilitate 30 historic vistas along the Park Loop Road, existing pull-outs and parking lots, according to Robert Page, director of the Olmsted Center for Landscape Preservation in Boston, part of the National Park Service. Continue reading →

Party with the stars on Cadillac in Acadia National Park

Perhaps you’ve seen sunrise or sunset atop Cadillac Mountain in Acadia National Park. But have you seen the stars that make up the Milky Way or the constellations of Sagittarius and the Teapot?

Summer Triangle constellation

Map of the Summer Triangle constellation (via Wikimedia Commons)

Party with the stars on Cadillac on Saturday, Sept. 27, from 8-10 p.m., and you’ll see that and more as part of the 6th annual Acadia Night Sky Festival.

Your guides to the stars – Acadia National Park rangers and local astronomers – will offer 20-minute laser-pointer shows, and staff dozens of telescopes set up on the summit.

Fiana Shapiro, an Acadia National Park ranger who is serving as one of the guides at the Star Party, says she will be showing visitors some of the constellations that can only be seen this time of year, pointing up to the dark skies with a laser pointer.

“The Summer Triangle is a big one,” says Shapiro, and once you can identify those three stars of Altair, Vega and Deneb, visible this time of year, you can identify the constellations known as the Swan (Cygnus), the Eagle (Aquila) and the Lyre (Lyra). Continue reading →

Look, up in the sky – endless stars over Acadia National Park!

The days are glorious in Acadia National Park, but so are the star-filled nights.

Acadia Night Sky Festival

The official poster for the 6th annual Acadia Night Sky Festival. (Photo by Nathan Levesque)

Acadia, with the darkest skies along the US eastern seaboard, is where the thousands of stars making up the Milky Way can be seen, something that two-thirds of US residents can’t view at home because of city lights.

All you need to do is look up on a dark, clear night, and you’ll be starstruck in Acadia, as our nieces were in recent visits, Stacey at Thunder Hole, and Sharon and Michelle at the ranger-led Stars Over Sand Beach program.

To celebrate in celestial style, Acadia National Park, the Friends of Acadia, Schoodic Institute, local chambers of commerce and more than a dozen businesses and organizations, are holding one big party Sept. 25 – Sept. 29, the 6th annual Acadia Night Sky Festival.

Among the more than 30 events planned: Star parties, night hikes, kid-friendly activities, a boat cruise, movies and scientific and literary presentations, and bioluminescent canoe paddles.

But it’s not just another festival to help boost the Downeast Maine economy in between the busy summer and peak foliage seasons.

It’s also an important reminder of how dark skies are a dwindling resource around the world, affecting astronomy, ecosystems and even human circadian rhythms. And it helps highlight the estimated $2 billion a year being wasted with unnecessary lighting in the US alone, a statistic publicized by the International Dark-Sky Association (IDA), a non-profit founded in 1988 to reduce light pollution. Continue reading →

Acadia National Park aided by policies of Theodore Roosevelt and FDR

Long before he was president and signed a law that later helped preserve land for Acadia National Park, Theodore Roosevelt spent some of the happiest days of his life on Mount Desert Island.

Theodore Roosevelt visited Mount Desert Island in the late 1800s

Theodore Roosevelt visited Thunder Hole and other sites before Acadia National Park was founded. (NPS photo)

After he graduated from Harvard in 1880, Roosevelt vacationed near Schooner Head on Mount Desert, partly to inspire writing of his epic “The Naval War of 1812.” Roosevelt was also drawn to the island by the landscape paintings of Mount Desert by two of his favorite artists – Frederic Church and Thomas Cole of the Hudson River School.

Roosevelt, then 22, was joined on the island that summer by two friends, Dick Saltonstall and Jack Tebbetts, and later, Alice Lee, who would become his first wife.

“He was lulled by the murmuring ocean, he picked baskets of cranberries, collected shellfish in the tidal marsh and gathered wild berries, and when Alice .. arrived, strolled ‘with my darling in the woods and on the rocky shores’,” according to “The Wilderness Warrior,” a biography of Roosevelt by Douglas Brinkley, a professor of history at Rice University in Texas who quoted from Roosevelt’s diaries.

Even though a doctor at Harvard warned Roosevelt that year that his heart was “terribly weak” and he could die young, Roosevelt rode horseback, hiked and sailed while visiting Mount Desert, Brinkley wrote. A “favorite locale” was 1,530-foot Cadillac Mountain, then called Green Mountain.

Roosevelt, and his fifth cousin, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, along with Eleanor Roosevelt – wife of FDR and niece of Theodore Roosevelt – are featured in “The Roosevelts: An intimate history,” a seven-part series on public television by filmmaker Ken Burns that first aired in 2014. Continue reading →

Photographer QT Luong puts focus on Acadia National Park

The grandeur of America’s national parks so inspired QT Luong, he quit a career in computer science, and embarked on a decades-long project to photograph all 59 parks, from Acadia National Park to Zion.

QT Luong and Acadia National Park fall foliage

One of QT Luong’s most popular Acadia National Park images is of what he calls “some of the most beautiful fall foliage on the East Coast.” (Photo by QT Luong/terragalleria.com all rights reserved)

Like Ansel Adams before him, Luong has lugged his heavy large-format camera to some of the wildest and most scenic spots in the country, at times carrying a 70-pound backpack, scaling cliffs or kayaking through frigid waters.

And long before Ken Burns featured him in “The National Parks: America’s Best Idea” in 2009, as the first person to have photographed all the parks in large format, Luong has been sharing his finely detailed photographs on his Web site.

With photography, Luong tells us, he aims to “convey my feelings of wonder and passion, to inspire people to go and seek the experiences that I had.”

QT Luong at work

QT Luong with his large-format camera. (Photo by Buddy Squires, courtesy of QT Luong/terragalleria.com all rights reserved)

In Acadia, he finds wonder not in the immensity of the scenery, as in Yosemite, his sentimental favorite. Rather, Luong writes us in an e-mail, “I always find the compactness of the park remarkable, that you can find such a variety of landscapes in such a small area.”

Among his favorite landscapes from the variety that is Acadia: The pink granite along Ocean Drive; the fall colors on top of Cadillac; the rugged coastline of Isle au Haut; and sunset skies over Jordan Pond, as seen from the top of North Bubble.

The park’s beauty lends itself well to large-format photographs because they “have such fine resolution that the prints show details that are usually lost to the human eye,” says Luong. “Acadia’s landscapes have a tremendous amount of texture, down to the single leaf, which are best revealed by this approach.” Continue reading →

Acadia National Park to hold hearing on Otter Creek trails

UPDATE Sept. 16: Since the original public hearing notice, Acadia National Park expanded the agenda to include update on the boat launch in the inner cove, and use and access to the outer cove fish house, as shared by Otter Creek Hall’s Facebook page.

Here’s the original story:

As part of a grand design to connect villages to Acadia National Park via footpath, two old Otter Creek trails slated for upgrading could be a boon for residents, campers and hikers, and may also address some of the long-standing tension between community and park.

Acadia officials will air the proposal to improve the trails at a hearing on Sept. 16, 6 p.m. at Otter Creek Hall, 82 Otter Creek Drive. Also likely to be discussed: The state of Otter Creek-park relations, which at times have been strained.

Otter Cove

Otter Creek residents hope to get improved trail access to Otter Cove.

The historic trails, long used by residents, would be rehabilitated and better marked, and would allow residents and visitors to walk from the village of Otter Creek, to newly opened park trails that connect to Gorham Mountain, Otter Cove and Blackwoods Campground.

The network of trails would create many long day-hiking opportunities, limited only by one’s imagination, map, or guidebook.

And it may also help ease some of the old conflicts between the park and the Otter Creek community, which was cut off from the waterfront after John D. Rockefeller Jr. bought land along Otter Cove in the 1930s, as part of his vision for the park. Continue reading →

Acadia National Park eyes Sept. 5 deadline for Isle au Haut comments

Time is running out if you want to have a say on the future management of Isle au Haut, a spectacular part of Acadia National Park.

Goat Trail on Isle au Haut in Acadia National Park

The contrasts are dramatic along the Goat Trail on Isle au Haut.

The National Park Service has set a Sept. 5 deadline for people to comment on a draft “Visitor Use Management Plan” for park-owned land on Isle au Haut, a 6,500-acre island off the coast of Stonington. Comments can be made over the Internet on the site established by the park service.

In the draft, the park service proposes to keep intact a “non-promotion” policy for the roughly half of the island it owns and administers on Isle au Haut. According to the longstanding policy, which is aimed at helping protect the fragile island from heavy use, visitors to the mainland sections of Acadia National Park generally will receive no information about Isle au Haut unless they ask for it. Continue reading →

Of puffins, wilderness and Acadia National Park

See Sept. 3 legislative update at bottom of post

Here is the original story:

People love puffins so much that visitors to Acadia National Park often ask rangers where they can see them, even though the seabirds with the colorful beaks are too far offshore to be visible.

It seems Atlantic puffins are to Maine what polar bears are to Alaska.

Atlantic puffins are listed as threatened in Maine

Atlantic puffins are listed as threatened in Maine. (US Fish and Wildlife Service photo)

Yet despite the public interest in puffins, and with Sept. 3 marking the 50th Anniversary of the Wilderness Act, a bill to extend wilderness protection to some of Maine’s puffin islands has languished in Congress for years.

When President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Wilderness Act on Sept. 3, 1964, the United States became the first country in the world to define and protect wilderness. Among the wilderness definitions embodied in the act: “…an area where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain.”

In Maine, from Acadia National Park to the North Woods, from Kittery to Caribou, and even along the so-called 100-Mile Wilderness of the Appalachian Trail, there’s very little federally designated wilderness, a fraction of 1 percent.

Since 2005, the US Fish and Wildlife Service has proposed that 13 Maine coastal islands, some near Acadia, become part of the National Wilderness Preservation System, the strongest form of federal protection. This would better preserve some puffin habitat, but Congress has yet to act. Continue reading →