The Daily Telegraph - Saturday - Travel
A hundred years of solitude
Kathy Arnold visits Acadia National Park, an East Coast wilderness of mountains, glacial lakes and ocean that is currently celebrating its centenary ‘As we look east, the sky over the Atlantic morphs from inky black to rosy pink’
The alarm buzzes angrily: it is four o’clock in the morning. Although my body protests, I get up and, a few minutes later, start driving through the darkness. I am not the only one: a line of headlights is slowly moving along the winding road up Cadillac Mountain, the easternmost peak in the United Sates. All of us want to be the first people in America to greet the dawn.
This ritual is one of the “musts” in Acadia National Park, in the northeast corner of Maine. On the flat 1,530ft summit, hundreds have gathered. There are babies and grandparents, children and dogs. As we look east, the star-studded sky over the Atlantic slowly morphs from inky black to deep blue, then charcoal grey and finally, rosy pink. As cameras and phones capture the moment, there is a murmur of appreciation, rather than the American rah-rah I expected.
Cadillac Mountain is the tallest of a score of peaks in this park, which takes up most of Mount Desert Island. On August 25, the US National Park Service (nps.gov) will officially be celebrating its 100th birthday with events around the nation and Acadia, the oldest national park east of the Mississippi River – is having a centenary jamboree of its own this year. What makes Acadia so special for me is the juxtaposition of granite mountains and ocean, dense forest and sandy coves, lakes and tidal pools. An easy five-hour drive from Boston, this is one big adventure playground.
I start exploring by bike, pedalling along “carriage roads” that loop up hill and down dale. “About 45 miles of gravel road were designed and built in the early 20th century by John D Rockefeller Jr,” my guide, Lenny, explains. The financier once owned much of the park’s 75 square miles and spent summers here. On these lanes, horses did the work; Rockefeller’s guests admired the scenery in comfort, without building up a sweat – unlike me.
Our 18-mile ride takes us past Eagle Lake, Witch Hole Pond and over – or under – elegant stone bridges. We see maples, aspen, birch and soaring white pines. “The pines were perfect for ships’ masts,” Lenny says. “Back in colonial days, the best were labelled as the King’s Pines and reserved for the Royal Navy.”
He points out wild raspberries and the low-bush blueberries for which Maine is known, plus luminous orange mushrooms. “Hallucinogenic!” Lenny tells me, with a chuckle.
Having given my legs a workout on the bike, the next day it is the turn of my arms. Both stable and easy to manoeuvre, modern sea kayaks are a great way to get out on to the water. Download the free Telegraph Travel app for an overview of America’s 57 national parks, provided by our experts. The app also includes information on five key national parks: Great Smoky Mountains, Rocky Mountains, Yellowstone, Yosemite and Grand Canyon. There’s To download, follow the link at tgr. ph/travelapp. Our free app is compatible with iPhone 4, 5 and 6 and iPads.