Acadia Partners Blog

This is the first of a series of three short writings that talk about Acadia Partners’ mission. This first piece focuses on the place where Acadia Partners is located, since Acadia Partners’ mission is rooted in the importance of place.

At about 6:30 this morning the sky was brilliant red and orange all across the east, with one surprising streak of blue cutting horizontally. Red sky in morning, sailors take warning.

Getting out ahead of the storm, Molly the Giant Schnauzer and I took off on our regular early morning hike up to the top of Schoodic Head. The air was gray, cold, and still. The water in the little bay around Pond Island, where we park to begin our hike, was glassy and heavy with bits of ice that slowed the motion of the low waves rolling in. The water was steel gray. The Cranberry Islands in the distance were deep blue.

Most of the snow from last weekend’s storm had melted, leaving a crust of ice over softer, crumbly snow. You could still make out the tracks from the snowshoe trip we took up last Saturday and from our cross-country ski run through heavy, wet snow on Sunday. No snowshoes or skis today, just warm boots.

Walking on snow is hard work. When the road is clear, we can make the trip to the top in under 20 minutes. It takes at least half again as long in the snow. But walking on snow has the advantage of letting you see who else has been there. Up toward the top of the trail Molly stopped to sniff a mouse track. The mouse had crossed the open stretch of road right at the start of the circle in the parking area on Schoodic Head. A few weeks back, in this same area, we had been surprised by an owl sitting and watching us from the trees overlooking this clearing.

The owl had been elsewhere last night when the mouse made its crossing. But the mouse had owls on the brain–it was "making tracks" in all senses of the phrase. In the brush on the edge of the road, under some cover, the mouse slowed down. The tracks bent into circles turning in on each other as the mouse hunted around for seeds. Was the bush the goal of this high risk crossing? Or were the seeds bits a literal windfall, bits of unexpected good luck?

We made our way up the ice to the top of Schoodic Head, where we could look east, to Petit Manan and beyond. Looking north, along the Schoodic Peninsula, and northeast, along the coast into Washington County, it is still possible to feel that this is a wild place. The actual land occupied by Acadia National Park on the peninsula is a relatively small area, but it is surrounded by woods and coast that are still only lightly populated and developed, relative to most of the rest of the Atlantic coast.

We were in the calm before the storm–the ocean looked quiet. We headed west, along what is called the "Schoodic Head Trail," which leads first across a ridge and down stone steps and a steep ravine, then along edges of granite escarpments down to a road near the ranger cabin.

We walked only a short ways along this trail before coming to the stopping place for the first cup of coffee of the hike. In addition to the coffee, there are dog biscuits. But the real attraction, for me, anyway, are the views across to Cadillac Mountain and up past Ironbound Island, to the top of Frenchman Bay. In the fall we can look at the cruise ships anchored in Bar Harbor and can watch the Cat start on its morning run to Yarmouth, Nova Scotia.

When walking in winter, I carry a small piece of foam to sit on. The foam makes sitting on snow more comfortable, so it is easier to sit and watch for awhile. Molly and I are both good at sitting and watching. Schoodic Head is a great place to sit and watch.

This morning, after the coffee cup was empty, I put on a pair of ice-gripping cleats. They slip over my shoes and give me the same effect as studded snow tires, but on my feet. I knew I would need them for the walk down past the coffee stop, since the snow of a week ago would be turned into ice on rocks. Molly’s approach to dealing with the ice is to sit down.  I have watched her head down short slopes in a sitting position, looking surprised.

We picked our way to the bottom of the ravine. As recently as a couple of days ago water had still been running down over the rocks, despite the very cold temperatures. The water runs under the surface of the ground for much of the time, between rocks covered by soil, needles, leaves, and moss, and so is insulated from some of the cold. But, by this morning, things were slowing up. Clear, black runs of ice had replaced the water that pooled among the dark rocks just two days ago.

At the bottom of the ravine we had our second cup of coffee and second handful of biscuits. This is a sheltered place, a very quiet place, which makes it a different kind of spot to sit and watch, less demanding, more near focus than far. Just this past Tuesday it started snowing hard while we were sitting there. That day we sat until we were both covered with a layer of white. It sounds odd, but in practice it is a very easy thing to do, watching the big flakes come down through the trees and listening to small sounds.

When the coffee was gone we headed down past the creek, along the escarpments to the road. While walking through an area sheltered by large trees we came across the tracks of a big hare. Judging from the distance between tracks, he had just been idling along.

Further on we came across fox tracks, running along the trail for a ways and then into the bushes. Molly was deeply interested, and so stuck her nose deeply into the snow.

At the bottom of the trail there were bigger dog tracks–without people tracks alongside. Coyote? The tracks were dense–this animal had been back and forth across the road. There were also the tracks–heck, the whole furrow through the snow–of a porcupine. The coyote and porcupine appeared to have been on different schedules–there was no interaction.

All the tracks made it feel like a busy place, despite the fact that, at that moment, we were standing there alone. We walked back along the road to our car–no storm yet, but the wind was picking up.

Next: Who do we thank for this place?

This entry was posted on Friday, December 16th, 2005 at 7:05 pm and is filed under Acadia National Park, Local Economy, Community, Decision making, Acadia Partners. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.