18.05.12
SEAL HARBOR, Maine - The sun rises over Sutton Island and the Cranberry Isles. I’m walking by myself, following the carriage roads, circumnavigating the shore of Little Long Pond at the base of Sargent Mountain and Penobscot Mountain on the south side of Acadia National Park.
In fair weather this part of the park is lively with summering preppies. Pastel picnickers spread out blankets in the meadows, retrievers fetch sticks from the pond, horse people drive their carriages up and down the mountains - Martha Stewart, who has a summer house here, can be seen riding her Friesian horses along the roads and over the stone bridges. But today it is cold and most of the leaves have fallen and so I have the place to myself.
In late fall, Mount Desert Island is a paradise for reverent ramblers. There are more than 47,000 acres of mountains, woodlands, ocean shoreline, and lakes, with 125 miles of hiking trails and 45 miles of carriage roads. The hiking trails are marked with stone cairns and hand-carved stone steps. John D. Rockefeller Jr. built the carriage roads between 1913 and 1940. In the summer a couple million visitors swarm all over the park. For those seeking it, solitude can be found on the west side, the “quiet side of the island,’’ but most of the park’s attractions are around the high mountain and dramatic shoreline of the east side.
Source: The Boston Globe