Member-only story

Our Final Day in Acadia: Tremendous Nature Scapes, Part III

Two different sites, both with striking vistas but different ecosystems.

Carol Labuzzetta, MS
5 min readSep 24, 2022
Beach off of Wonderland Trail. © Carol Labuzzetta, 2022.

The last day in Acadia National Park was shaped, somewhat by our Cadillac Mountain Sunrise being fogged out the day before. Fortunately, I had thought ahead and also reserved entry for the following day to Cadillac Mountain Summit Road. Access to Cadillac Mountain is by pre-registration only, I assume, due to limited parking at the summit. Although we could not see a sunrise, we could take in the vistas from the summit once our reservation time arrived. We scheduled to enter the ranger-manned visitor gate between 11 and 11:30 a.m.

Reservations for both the sunrise on Cadillac Mountain and timed access to Cadillac Mountain Summit Road can be made on the website Recreation.gov. There is a small fee for both types of permits. You simply search for your desired activity, select the day you want to participate, and pay a small fee. You get a receipt of your reservation(s) with a QR code that is scanned by the ranger at the gated entrance to Cadillac Mountain (in our case).

Quick Tip: A limited number of reservations open 90 days prior to the day you want to visit. I started searching before that and was ready to purchase the day reservations opened on the date we wanted to…

--

--

Carol Labuzzetta, MS
Carol Labuzzetta, MS

Written by Carol Labuzzetta, MS

I write about the environment, education, nature, and travel. Having two master's degrees, in nursing and environmental education, I am a teacher at heart.

Responses (2)