Seasonal beauty on Road 132 from Perce, QC to the NB border. New Brunswick to Maine: In Campbelton, quaint bilingual border town, I heard local stories at the cozy Super 8 spa. Crossing the border at Van Buren was a bit challenging. I rounded up the day with a seafood meal in Machias, ME, and the Bluebird Motel.
Acadia National Park – Maine’s Precious Jewel
Acadia - The Higher-End National Park
Acadia National Park, Blackwoods Campground and Jordan Pond
Blackwood Campground; On the horizon- Mt. Cadillac; Jordan Pond Loop Trail; Sirens in Paradise; Those amazing trees…; Acadia’s Sandy Beach; Sandy beaches – appendix
Oct 4th,2016
Following a long day on the roads, a border crossing and a disturbed night sleep at the Bluebird Motel, Machias, I eventually made my way to Acadia National Park, Blackwoods Campground. That was a good spot from which to explore Maine’s crown jewel on Mount Desert Island.
To read more about my N. America Sola Camping Trip Start here, go to Table of Contents, or follow the links below:
Acadia National Park, Blackwoods Campground, and a $10 Life Subscription
Originally as I was back from my first Canadian sojourn, I planned to come to Acadia for a full week. I estimated (wrongly) that at the end I might be tired and would want to stay in one place, but the real reason was false information. I was made to believe entrance was costly and I needed to pay for a minimum of one week. Based on that, I thought I’ll spend my last travelling week in the park to maximize the benefit of the fee.
Things did not turn out that way in the end because I chose to do Gaspe. In an interesting flip of events I found out that for a mere 10$ I could have actually bought not just a weekly pass to Acadia, but a life pass to all American national parks …
But I discovered that later.
When I paid the Blackwood Campground fee, I was asked for my age and how long I was going to stay and then for a mere 10$ , much less than I expected. It was the end of the season and the guys at the booth were clearly too tired to explain things or be helpful. They made me print my personal info on a small card and sign it. I hung up the card on the mirror as instructed and drove on, pleased with the price.
The tag was hanging in the car for the duration of my stay. Later, a wonderful couple I met on Mount Cadillac revealed to me I was eligible for a senior pass. I did not realize I was already in possession of the spoken-of pass, that this tag hanging on my mirror was actually it. Therefore, before leaving Acadia, I rushed to the Visitor Center to get one. I paid the 10$ requested, and only when I saw the new card it dawned on me I already had one. The nice old guy at the desk agreed to wait until I ran all the steps down to the car, pulled it off the mirror and showed it to him just as they were closing for the day. He cancelled my extra payment.
At that moment, though, what concerned me was trying to figure out the loops, one-way roads and ins and outs of the campground premises, and then putting up my tent. I was located a bit away from a large Chinese family comfortably perched in several impressive tents with gazebo shelters. We acknowledged each other’s presence, but it did not go beyond that. Somehow I did not connect Chinese with camping. Live and learn.
On the Horizon - Mt. Cadillac
Once settled, I attempted to drive to Jordan Pond, starting my Acadia experience with a “horizontal”. Just a bit outside the campground on road 3, I saw multiple cars parked by the roadside, indicating a trail, but there was no sign. I stopped and asked a middle-aged female couple what it was. They happily explained it was the Mt. Cadillac climb. I asked how hard it was, saying I was not interested in hairy experiences. They volunteered tips for climbing and promised me I could master it. The last leg of the climb, necessitating holding on to metal grips, was a bit iffy, but they decided between the two of them that I could do it!…
However, they weren’t sure, either, which side of the road the climb was on, doing it a while back. There were steps leading to trails on both sides. Only later I understood why. I tried to memorize the spot, so I could find it again the next day, but trusted I would recognize it by the cars, which later proved to be a mistake…
Jordan Pond Loop Trail
For some reason I fumbled my way around Acadia more than the other parks. To my defence, it, admittedly, is quite complex. Eventually, I managed to get to the central Jordan Pond House where the loop trail started. Parking was an ordeal. A lady was directing traffic, but there were no slots available. I was directed to another parking lot, and then to yet another!
Praying I’d remember where I left the car, I went on the trail, which was worth every praise. The beginning, of course, was crowded, but the numbers thinned as I walked on. It wasn’t a difficult or long trail, and the pond, serving as a water source for the town of Bar Harbor, offered many sighting spots and photographic pearls:
An American president actually said: You’ve seen one tree, you’ve seen them all... Can't they see that each tree is an individual? We keep letting ourselves be ruled by people who are not only extremely ignorant but also so deficient when it comes to Soul…
Sirens in Paradise
Tranquility was perfect. Beauty was perfect. Many couples were using the setup for romance.
Then we heard sirens.
My Israeli instincts warned: a terrorist attack. Second thought: accident. But then my cellular lit. I got a text message notifying me a child was abducted in the area. I don’t know if that was connected with the sirens, but I assumed so. Instinctively I started suspecting innocent-looking people, like an older man walking peacefully with his daughter. Maybe this was just a pretense. Perhaps he kidnapped her and made her look nonchalant, cooperative… I decided I did not have enough knowledge, and unless something was totally obvious I will leave this for others to figure, and kept walking.
In Israel, whenever there is a missile shot at a Kibbutz near Gaza or at Sderot, I get a ring on my computer… Big brother knows where all our computers are.
The goal in this case was clearly benevolent. Still, I’m scared of what governments and companies will do with the excessive powers they have to invade our lives, but that is a separate discussion.
Those Amazing Trees...
I kept walking, enjoying the incredible vistas. When the lake took the turn to the other side, things got shadier and darker. The day was also getting older. Big part of the road was boarded. I took pictures in sepia and in black and white. As in many other trails, it was all about and around trees:
Those stunning, hardy beings survive in these poor soils and extreme weather. Convoluted, their roots exposed, their trunks slanted or tied in loops and knots, they nonetheless keep growing, reproducing, generating oxygen for us to breath and creating habitats for others. Do we still remember that an American president actually said: You’ve seen one tree, you’ve seen them all? The above slider is trying to correct that crude statement. Each tree is an individual. We keep letting ourselves be ruled by people who are not only extremely ignorant, but also totally deficient when it comes to Soul…
Acadia's Sandy Beach
I had a little snack at the Jordan Pond House and then took a drive, trying to see more of what the national park was about. The one-way Park Loop Road took me eventually to “Sand Beach”. It was getting cold and late, but I still walked (with my stick, of course) to the viewpoint.
The panel explained a complicated process by which a rock off-shore, nicknamed “Old Soaker”, diverts a current to the glacially-formed beach pocket. The result is that shell fragments are captured and form a sandy layer. Normally along the cold Maine coast they would get dissolved by gases. Due to that phenomenon, most of the shore features the uncovered granite bedrock, that erodes slowly and does not contribute much sand to the beaches.
Personally, I prefer the look of rocky shorelines, especially when tide pools are formed, as in Israel’s Akhziv and Atlit beaches. There’s no question, of course, that sandy beaches have an allure for swimmers and beachcombers, and are much more accessible and easier to walk along.
The next day I challenged myself to the biggest vertical of my trip: Mount Cadillac.
Appendix: There's More to Sandy Beaches Than Meets the Eye
I grew up believing beaches were one big continuum, and naturally sandy. Sea sand was, of course, white or yellow. This is the predominant situation along the Mediterranean coast.
It took travelling, including inside Israel, to debunk my misconceptions. In the volcanic island of Santorini, Greece, I discovered black beaches, composed of eroded basalt and lava; in Croatia – small (and very beautiful) patches of sand in bays, lagoons and coves, but no continuum. When Negev sandstone erodes, it creates a panoply of colors – yellow, purple, green, red , even blue sands.
Interestingly, the sand along the Israeli Mediterranean southern and central coast (but not the northern part which is rocky) was deposited there by the mighty Nile River. The grains were carried all the way from Ethiopia and Sudan. The Israeli coast is considered the northernmost stretch of the Sahara desert…
Of course, most Israeli beachcombers are completely unaware of these facts, just like most people most places most of the time do not know where and how the weather that comes their way originates. The erection of the Aswan dam blocking the sand as well as the water, has a detrimental effect on our shoreline. Much bigger damage was accrued by the obstruction of fertile silt coming to the northern part of Egypt, forcing farmers to use fertilizers, but that’s another topic. The Israeli sandy coastline, stretching for 650 km is known as The Nile’s Littoral Cell and is one of the biggest littoral cells in the world.
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