NP#44 - Acadia National Park

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   August 4, 2014 - Our 44th National Park Visit

   Atop Cadillac Mountain - the highest point along the Atlantic

    Sunrise on Cadillac Mountain - Aug 5th (to enlarge, click on Picture)

   Acadia Cairns - Granite trail markers on Cadillac Mountain

    Rugged Shoreline  along Acadia NP coast

    Foggy morning on coast of Maine

    Cobble Beach near Thunder Hole

    Gentle waves polishing the pinkish granite cobbles

    Fog thickens as the sun begins to rise.

   A spindly snag clinging to the craggy cliff

   Carriage Road Bridge

August 4, 2014 – Arrived at Acadia NP at 4:45pm after driving up Hwy 1 from Freeport. Nice drive if you are in no hurry as the mostly single lane road passes through many small towns

Low on gas when we entered the park. Toured the Visitor’s Center to pick up our pin, a book about the Park, view the movie and then frantically began looking for a gas station as the fuel light began to blink! Finally found one as we were exiting the park in route to the Hampster in Ellsworth. Lobster dinner at Union River Lobster Pot. Small tail…yet tasty. Terry’s Lobster Pie…not so much!

Aug 5^th – Up at 4am to drive to the top of Cadillac Mtn in Acadia NP. Cadillac is the highest peak on the Atlantic coast and if you happen to be the only one atop the mountain at sunrise, you would be the first person to witness daybreak on the continental US. However, if you arrive after 5 am, good luck finding a place to park! The parking lot at the summit was jam-packed. I happened to get the second-to-last parking spot - illegally parked in the Bus Parking zone. Good news – no busses up on Cadillac at 5 am and no Rangers to ticket us illegals!

There had to be a couple hundred people gathered on the summit to witness the sunrise. And judging by the time I arrived…most of them had to have gotten there by 4:30 am!

Cadillac Mountain was named after a French explorer and adventurer - Antoine Laumet de La Mothe Sieur de Cadillac - who also founded the city of Detroit, MI. Many years later, Monsour Cadillac had an automobile named after him!

Sunrise was scheduled for 5:22 am. Impressive view of the islands as the sun crept above the distant cloud cover. I snapped a few shots of the crimson sunrise then headed down the hill to Jordan Pond. Clicked a couple of shots of some shoreline rocks at Jordan’s, then headed back to the Hampster. Arrived at 7:30 only to find Terry snoring loudly. It’s now 8:29 and she’s still out! I’ll give her until 9…then its time to get back out to the park for a scouting mission – for tomorrow morning’s photo shoot! Looking for Lighthouse and shoreline shots! 

Aug 6^th. Up again at 4ish. Off to the coast to shoot the rugged coastline.  No traffic at this early hour. I pity the poor fools who got up early today to view the sunrise on Cadillac. There will be no sunrise today!  A gloriously foggy morning!  Just how I imagined the Maine coast to behave.  Yesterday it was in the high 80’s here, which seemed warm for this area.

I parked just short of the Thunder Hole to shoot a section of the coast I saw the previous day when scouting the area. Perfect morning for a photo shoot…except for the other photographer wearing a bright yellow raincoat standing in my scene! I suppose I can photoshop him out of the picture!

If you visit this park and want to take an easy hike with breathtaking views along the coast, park your car at Sand Beach and hike the well-beaten trail to Otter Point. Just north of Thunder Hole you’ll find a section of beach covered with volleyball sized pinkish  cobblestones. They’re somewhat of a challenge to walk on; however, they were an excellent subject or my photo session. 

After shooting the coast for about an hour, I packed up the tripod and camera and sought out to shoot one of the many stone faced bridges built during the construction of the 45-miles of carriage roads that weave around Mt. Desert Island.

The carriage roads were a gift from John D. Rockefeller, Jr. and family. Rockefeller was a skilled horseman and wanted to enjoy Mt. Desert Island via horse and carriage. Hence, his generous contribution to the area provided the funds necessary to construct  network of broken stone roads throughout the island.  

The stone-faced bridges were built to span streams, waterfalls, other roads and cliff sides.

Rockefeller financed 16 of the 17 bridges that were designed to blend in with the surrounding landscape.  Terry had seen a photograph of one of the bridges at our hotel and remarked how photogenic they appeared!

Acadia National Park – America’s first park east of the Mississippi covers about half of Mt Desert Island in northeastern Maine. I would describe Acadia to be an “urban park” like Cuyahoga in Ohio or Hot Springs in Arkansas, as the park grounds are interspersed amongst private residences. Unlike the Yosemite’s, the Yellowstone’s, the Grand Canyon’s or many of the other western parks where you must pass through an Entrance Station to gain access to the park, at Acadia you enter via Highway 3 and are free to drive about the park without constraint.

Your “entrance fee”, should you choose to participate in paying one, is collected at the Hull’s Cove Visitor Center located just off Hwy 3 about 7 miles after you cross the Thompson Island bridge which provides access to Mt. Desert Island.

Mt. Desert Island was once a summer playground for the wealthy. The likes of the Rockefeller’s, Fords, Vanderbilt’s, Pulitzer’s, Morgan’s and Astor’s all built “cottages” on the island. George Bucknam Dorr, a Boston Lawyer and philanthropist arrived in Mt. Desert Island in 1868. He and his family fell in love with the Island and the Dorr’s bought property, which eventually became the genesis of what was to become Acadia National Park.

Dorr sensed that logging and development interests posed a threat to the preservation of  the Island’s character. He worked within a community of wealthy “Cottagers” to create the Hancock County Trustees of Public Reservations. Dorr persuaded the Trustees to purchase lands on Mt. Desert Island and gift the property to the US Government thus creating Sieur de Monts National Monument.  

His dedication to the preservation of this landscape helped influence John D. Rockefeller, Jr. to donate 11,000 acres of the island to the Trustees. For his efforts, Dorr was appointed to be the first superintendent of Sieur de Monts National Monument which later became Acadia National Park.  

Dorr died blind and penniless, investing everything he had in helping preserve and protect the lands that are now Acadia National Park.  In this age of “what’s in it for me”, I am amazed and grateful that people like Dorr and Rockefeller were generous contributors to what has become a world renown treasure trove of landscapes called our National Parks!