Tag Archives: cadillac-mountain-closures

Rescue on Pemetic Mountain in Acadia National Park

Acadia during the pandemic: crowds, rescues, no camping

Acadia National Park saw a sharp drop in visits in June, but crowds are steadily returning to Acadia during the pandemic, with rescues of hikers and recent closures to relieve traffic on Cadillac underlining plans for a dry run of a vehicle reservation system in October, Superintendent Kevin Scheider said this week.

acadia national park during the pandemic

Acadia amid COVID-19: Another in a series (NPS photo)

The test of the reservation system, announced before the pandemic struck, is scheduled for Oct. 1 to Oct. 18 and will require people to make reservations to drive and park at two locations –  Cadillac Mountain and past the Sand Beach Entrance Station to Ocean Drive and Sand Beach, Schneider said.

“With the pandemic in many respects I think it is going to be an even better year to do it,” Schneider said.

He said several other parks are using reservation systems this summer during the pandemic. To manage congestion, prevent crowding and achieve social distancing, Rocky Mountain and Yosemite national parks started vehicle reservation systems and Zion National Park is requiring new tickets on shuttles.

To access those two areas in Acadia during the dry run, the park will soon release information about how people can make reservations  at recreation.gov, the same online system currently used for reservations at National Park Service campgrounds and vehicle reservation systems at other parks, he said.

During a “Community COVID-19 Forum,” a Zoom webinar by the town of Bar Harbor, Schneider said online entrance pass sales have doubled this year for Acadia. He also discussed the closed Blackwoods and Schoodic Woods campgrounds, which on Wednesday were declared shut down by the NPS for all of 2020, dashing hopes they could open as early as Aug. 1.

The park’s two other campgrounds, Seawall and Duck Harbor on Isle au Haut, were earlier announced as not opening this year. As a reason, Schneider referred to the park’s shortage of custodians to clean bathrooms and the large number of people who share a bathroom at a campground.

schoodic woods

No camping at Schoodic Woods or any of the other Acadia campgrounds this year. (Image courtesy of Recreation.gov)

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Acadia traffic closed Cadillac summit road 54 times in 2018

Acadia National Park rangers in 2018 closed the summit road to Cadillac Mountain to incoming vehicles 54 times because of traffic congestion, possibly accenting the need for a reservation system to park at the peak.

Acadia National Park ranger blocks traffic during a closure of the Cadillac Mountain summit road due to heavy traffic.

An electronic sign flashes “Cadillac Summit Closed,” while an Acadia National Park ranger stops traffic from going up the peak during Labor Day weekend in 2018.

The 54 closures at Cadillac occurred between June 26 and Oct. 24. The closures came as the number of visitors to Acadia in 2018 jumped to  3.52 million through November, exceeding in 11 months the 3.509 million for all of 2017, according to National Park Service statistics.

Christie Denzel Anastasia, public affairs specialist at Acadia National Park, said the park tracks the closures as best as possible and dispatchers record the closures on an Excel spreadsheet, but the numbers may not always be precise.

The summit road to Cadillac was recorded to be closed to incoming Acadia traffic about 70 times in 2017, she said.

“We can safely say that Cadillac Summit Road is the area that regularly experiences congestion, and has for a while,” she said. “But when we are able to close it for safety reasons, we do.”

The length of the closures varies from about 15 to 90 minutes, she said.

acadia traffic

Scenes like this have become all too common near the top of Cadillac as more than 3 million visitors a year come to Acadia. (NPS photo)

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