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Acadia National Park, Maine
Past the shadows that fall down wherever we meet
In a photo that's eerily similar to one sent last year the Park Loop Road and headlands of Acadia National Park fade into the Atlantic from the precipitous face of Champlain Mountain. Acadia's Precipice Trail, open only late August through early December, is inarguably the most fun, popular and dangerous trail the park has to offer. This is a typical example of what to expect a thousand feet (or so) above the parking lot, where one row of rungs is meant to be hung onto while another is to prevent your feet from sliding off that cliff and down that thousand feet (or so) back to that parking lot.
After scaling the face of Champlain, I found myself alone atop its rocky head with only a distant sign, a small rainwater pond and a stiff, cold, unforgiving wind to keep me company.
After well over 2200 miles logged throughout the woods and coasts of Quebec, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, I felt it time to give my unlucky rental car a rest. A regularly scheduled car ferry leaves the indistinctive town of Yarmouth, Nova Scotia and arrives into the ever familiar waters of Frenchman's Bay and Bar Harbor.
Clearly lacking the charm of the old, slow eight hour Bluenose Ferry, The Cat cuts five hours and a lot of the fun from each trip. Still it does have its moments, the quick arrival was truly breathtaking at times- the perfect water, those incomparably humble bald mountains, the Porcupine Islands, everything that draws me back (and back) again (and again)...
You can call me king of the mountain(s).
One of the charms of Acadia National Park is its smallness. Compared to big western parks like Yosemite, Acadia's size and its highest mountain (at a mere fifteen hundred feet) remain much less than impressive. Still, if you get creative or recklessly ambitious, you can truly challenge yourself with Yosemite type numbers. I was lucky enough (or stupid enough, depending on your perspective) to walk an eighteen mile circuit with over three thousand feet of vertical gain across four summits (including the park's second and fourth highest peaks), over varied rocky trails, well maintained carriage roads and a cliff trail that provided some fun, non-threatening technical climbing.
To replicate the experience (for those familiar with such places), park at Bubble Pond and climb the truly pleasant (but hard to follow) trail up Pemetic Mountain, and then go towards the coast up and over the Triad. Loop back to the carriage road, cross at the familiar Rockefeller gatehouse, then make your way to the wonderfully dangerous Jordan Cliffs trail. Ascend the trail, climbing past rungs and areas you wish had rungs until you reach the summit of Penobscot Mountain, then continue onto the even higher Sargeant Mountain. Finally, continue onto the spectacular carriage road until you return to Bubble Pond, at least six and a half hours wiser.
This picture was taken as I descended toward the sea and islands from Pemetic Mountain's wonderfully abandoned summit, led only by familiar cairns constantly leading me to yet another cairn.
The last of the Maine slides, clearly out of sequence to anyone paying attention so far, when my rental car was the only car at Bubble Pond and I was a good two hours of wonderfully isolated hiking away from seeing anyone else.
We’re finishing things up back in Canada as the sun sets across the St Laurent, across the walled city, across the water and home through the town. We’re back to Quebec City for this next to last slide, an early evening shot from just outside my bed and breakfast, just a ferry ride and a few hundred damn steep steps away from all the action.
A last slide from Cheticamp, Nova Scotia, just the remnants of the sun and a couple of clouds- an appropriately quiet view of a much quieter place.
