Not Getting Up at Dawn

Maine Week Travelog #10
Acadia National Park - Wednesday, 16 Jun 2021, 10pm.

On many lists of things to do at Acadia National Park you'll find "Watch the sunrise atop Cadillac Mountain." Cadillac, the park's tallest mountain, is said to be where the sun first rises on the United States. Watching sunrises there is so popular the Park Service has instituted a reservations system for trips to the Cadillac summit, with tickets for sunrise often selling out within minutes of availability. But we're not going to do it. Why? Because sunrise is at 4:48am!

Instead we've bought tickets to go at 8am tomorrow. That means we only have to wake up at 6:45 or so, instead of setting our alarms for 3:45am or even 3:30 to wake up, dress, pack, and drive up there.

Latitude and Longitude

Does the sun actually rise first at Cadillac Mountain? Well, Maine is clearly the farthest east of the 50 states. Bar Harbor, at 68.2° W longitude, isn't the farthest east part of Maine, but the claim rests on the fact that Cadillac Mountain's 1,529' elevation means the sun strikes it before lower lying land that is further east.

Note I've said, "farthest east of the 50 states". The US territorial possession of Puerto Rico is farther east. San Juan, PR is at 66.1° W.

There's also the matter of when during the year. Bar Harbor, ME is at 44.4° N latitude. In the summertime, when days are longer further north, dawn arrives earlier than at places further south. But in the winter, the north's days are shorter than the south's. That's where it's important to understand how far east Maine is relative to other east-coast states. The Atlantic seaboard of the US is often conceptualized as running north/south. That's inaccurate. In fact it runs northeast/southwest. For example, Miami, Florida, is at 25.8° N, 80.2° W compared to Bar Harbor's 44.4° N, 68.2° W.

BTW, another conceptual inaccuracy about the geography of the US is that states in the northeast are far north. They are not. Bar Harbor's latitude of 44.4° N is south of Portland, OR (45.5° N) and the entire state of Washington. In terms of other counties, the entire UK is north of Maine.

Hadlock Falls

Maine Week Travelog #9½
Acadia National Park - Wednesday, 16 Jun 2021, 9pm.

Oops, I got two of my blogs out of order. Before taking it easy Wednesday night and planning not to get up at 3:30am to visit Cadillac Mountain at sunrise we did one more hike. Yes, that hike was after our epic loop to The Beehive, the Bowl, and Gorham Mountain and the pink sea cliffs. We added on another 2 miles or so by foot to the day's adventure hiking to Hadlock Falls.



Hadlock Falls is in the less-visited western side of Acadia National Park. Here the mountain peaks are lower and the tourist facilities are fewer, though the trails are still plentiful. The park's in more of a primitive state. Part of that primitive state is the network of carriage roads.



Carriage Roads are a throwback to the early days of the park. Philanthropist John D. Rockefeller hated seeing motor vehicles in parks— ironic because he was a robber-baron of the oil industry— and donated money to build a network of no-cars-allowed roads in the 1910s through 1940s. At first these carriage roads were used for horseback riding and horse-drawn carriages. Today horses are quite uncommon on these roads while bicycles are a more common sight. (And yes, there are strict rules on bicycles with motors. We mustn't disobey the wishes dead billionaire robber barons!)

Anyway, we hiked up a few of these carriage roads to the falls then came back down a steeper foot trail. It was a good change of pace to connect with the park's past, even if that past was a 1%er's anachronistic fantasy from Day One.

Cadillac Mountain. The Bar in Bar Harbor.

Maine Week Travelog #11
Acadia National Park - Thursday, 17 Jun 2021, 9am.

As I wrote last night we decided not to get up at 3:30am to visit the summit of Cadillac Mountain at dawn. Instead we reserved a pass for 8am. We set our alarms for 6:30am, woke up somewhat begrudgingly, pulled together our hiking bags for a day of adventure (this plus later hikes), and left by 7:30. We arrived at the access road to the summit at 7:45, a bit early for our 8am ticket, but that was okay with the ranger guarding the road. We headed on up to the summit at 1,529'.



The remainder of the drive took awhile so we weren't at the top until nearly 8:15am— nearly 3½ hours after sunrise! There were still 360° views, though. Including this view (above) across the Gulf of Maine to the Atlantic Ocean.

Turning slightly inland I also liked this view of islands near Bar Harbor:



The chain of four small islands stretching left to right are Bar Island, Sheep Porcupine Island, Burnt Porcupine Island, and Long Porcupine Island. The one with the quay near it is Bald Porcupine Island. Yes, someone coming up with names here a few centuries ago apparently had a porcupine obsession.

Putting the "Bar" in Bar Harbor!

While I can only speculate about why so many of the islands remind(ed) someone of porcupines, there's actually an obvious source of the name for Bar Island— and thus Bar Harbor and the town named for it.



Bar Harbor is the town on the coast in the mid-ground of the pic above. Bar Island is at the center-left, just beyond it. Note that brownish strip on the left side of the island connecting it to the mainland. That is actually a bar— kind of like a sand bar, though made of rock not  sand— connecting the island to the mainland. It is exposed at low tide and can be crossed on foot. Thus the "bar" in Bar Harbor! Now all we have to figure out is why Mainers call it Bah Habbah.