Acadia News

ACADIA NAT’L PARK — A rockslide involving boulders larger than some cars has indefinitely closed ocean-side climbing areas at Otter Cliffs. Park officials must decide where and what kind of anchor to install in order to make the area safe for climbing, said ranger Stuart West.

ACADIA NATIONAL PARK, Maine - Park rangers dislodged a potentially dangerous pickup truck-size boulder from Otter Cliff on Saturday, park officials reported. "It was a precariously balancing boulder," said Stuart West of the National Park Service. "It was held in place by each end only. Daylight was visible behind the remaining boulder on the cliff’s edge." There were no witnesses when an estimated 19,000 pounds of granite broke away from the cliff on the evening of Tuesday, July 15, for unknown reasons, according to West.

Who are these guys?That’s among the questions swirling around a proposed “conservation community” that calls for development of 3,200 acres in Winter Harbor and Gouldsboro that abut Schoodic Point. That and other questions may be answered at a public meeting to be held in Winter Harbor at the Peninsula School gymnasium at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, May 14.

The U.S. House of Representatives today approved a bill that would allow Acadia National Park to acquire more land and build a station on the mainland from which to bus visitors to Mount Desert Island.The provisions are included in a larger natural resources bill, which the Senate approved earlier this month. The bill will be sent to President Bush, who is expected to sign it.

Every April, hundreds of volunteers take to the streets and roads of Mount Desert Island, sacrificing a few precious Saturday hours to preserve the beauty around Maine’s only national park. About 400 volunteers split into small teams spent several hours canvassing nearly 150 miles on MDI and the Schoodic Point section of Acadia National Park, cleaning up several tons of trash from the roadsides.