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Our National Parks: Acadia National Park Box 177, Bar Harbor, ME 04609 The Big Picture: On the “crown jewels” scale, Acadia rates somewhere below aquamarine. Comparisons seem unfair–even guidebooks use such quotidian vocabulary as “wilderness-like” to describe Acadia’s relative wilds–but they’re inevitable. Yellowstone is “breathtaking”; Acadia is “pleasant.” Acadia was donated piecemeal by the Rockefellers and other society families who wished to create public land for the less fortunate from bits of their hefty estates. What they left us was a chunk of classic Maine coastline replete with waterfowl, tidal pools, lowland bogs and heaths, hardwood forests, and the stony peaks that inspired French explorer Samuel de Champlain to call Perhaps the benefactors did not foresee that these wonders would be somewhat compromised by proximity to Bar Harbor’s weekend throngs and by millions of car-borne tourists (Acadia, one-twentieth the size of Yosemite, gets three-quarters as many visitors). But in Acadia, East Coast civilization and what’s left of East Coast wilderness somehow coexist, if imperfectly. Where Everyone Goes: The 20-mile Park Loop Road, which is essentially a conveyor belt to Acadia’s stoic attractions: the rock-and-sea cacophony at Thunder Hole; Sand Beach, immensely popular because it’s one of the few sand beaches in the park; Jordan Pond; The Bubbles, two 800-foot mounds of earth that bear a remarkable resemblance to Jane Russell’s bustline; and the 3.5-mile spur to the summit of Where You Should Go: Remember what most visitors don’t–that the park occupies not just Mount Desert Island, but also the tip of Schoodic Peninsula, half of 4,700-acre Isle au Haut, and four tiny islets. In summer, you can hitch a $9 ride to Isle au Haut on the mail boat that leaves four times daily from Stonington, at the end of Maine 15 on Deer On Mount Desert Island, solitude is a little harder to come by. On the eastern side, go deep into the park on 50 miles of carriage roads built by John D. Rockefeller, Jr. They’re good for mountain bikes and tandems (rent bikes for $11-$16 per day at Acadia Bike & Canoe, 207-288-5483), cross-country skiing (rent gear for $12 per day at Cadillac Mountain Sports, Don’t Forget: Your lightweight hiking boots. Acadia’s rocky coasts are hard on the ankles. Where to Bunk: Call the Inns of the Island bed-and-breakfast network (207-288-9511) and request one of the five rooms at The Inn at Canoe Point. It’s right on the water (in fact, it has one of those classic Maine decks that juts out over the ocean), is just across from the park’s Hulls Cove entrance, and costs $105-$195 between Memorial Day and Food Is: WASPy. Which in the case of the $5 popovers-and-tea at Jordan Pond House is not a liability. Park Lore: The most-told joke at Acadia is this: A guide was leading a tour of Acadia when a tourist in his group asked him where all the park’s rocks had come from. Being from Maine, the guide gave a standard one-word answer: “Glacier.” The tourist, taking this as rudeness, snapped, “Well, then, where did the glacier go?” The guide thought about Your Park Service at Work: Acadia is full of inholdings–pockets of private property–that the Park Service wants to acquire so badly it has earned true Big Brother status among locals over the years. The park obtained condemnation rights on Isle au Haut in 1982 and on Mount Desert Island in 1986. At the moment it wants to acquire the quarter-acre Where the money goes: Flashlight Reading: The Country of the Pointed Firs, by Sarah Orne Jewett (W.W. Norton, $7.95); Appalachian Mountain Club Guide to Mount Desert Island and Acadia National Park (Talman Company, $5.95). Fun Index: It’ll do, if you don’t have a New England summer place you can go to instead. 2.5 |
Our National Parks: Acadia National Park
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