Down East JUN 08 P.56-61 ACADIA'S FORGOTTEN LAKES Tucked amid bold ocean cliffs and granite-topped peaks, the lakes and ponds on Mount Desert Island manage to hide in plain sight. They're worth a second look. BY JOSHUA F. MOORE PHOTOGRAPHY BE JENNIFER SMITH-MAYO - Far fewer beachgoers visit Echo Lake (above) than Sand Beach, but those visitors willing to explore the island this stunning little vistas discover can like one from atop Beech Mountain. LONG POND boats destroying the tranquility of Long Pond, two-thirds of which lies within Size: 897 acres Maximum depth: 113 feet the park boundaries; motors are limited Water visibility: 33 feet to no more than ten horsepower on Long Pond, just as they are on the other As America's second-smallest national large lakes of Acadia. A few camps are park (at a mere 48,000 acres), Acadia tucked into the shore, especially at the can seem a bit too cozy at times, which northern end of the pond, but these is precisely when you should venture to cabins hardly detract from the overall Long Pond. The island's largest lake is natural beauty of the area. accessible by dirt road at its south end "It's absolutely awesome out there," (you can actually pop over from remarks Brian Hamor, who has been comparatively busy Echo Lake without renting a fleet of forty boats from his getting back on the highway), or else off National Park Canoe & Kayak Rental in Route 102 between Pretty Marsh and Mount Desert for the past twelve years. Somesville. Here you'll find the wilder "Both Mansell and Beech Mountain side of Acadia, whether you choose to come right down into the pond, SO it's paddle the full four-mile-long length of almost like paddling down Somes the pond, take a picnic lunch to Rum Sound, like canoeing down a fjord." Island, or else watch the wood ducks This pond, too, serves as a municipal feeding in the many coves and inlets. water supply, and therefore the residents of Anglers will particularly enjoy the bass Southwest Harbor appreciate visitors and landlocked salmon stocked by the keeping pollution and impact to an Maine Department of Inland Fisheries absolute minimum. Swimming is and Wildlife, as a quirk of seventeenth- prohibited within a thousand feet of the century law dictated that Acadia's great water intake, unless of course you are a ponds be managed by the state. But mink, ferret, or one of the other semi- don't worry about high-powered fishing aquatic creatures that call Long Pond home. JUNE 2008 59 including Livingston's property, as a way to safeguard against a typhoid outbreak like the one that hit Bar Harbor wells in 1873. The only man-made incursion near the lake in the past three-quarters of a century has been the construction of Rockefeller's carriage roads, an alteration that has proven to provide access without intrusion, as some 30 percent of all users of the carriage roads enter through the Eagle Lake gate. (A third gate lodge, in addition to the one at Jordan Pond and Brown Mountain Gate Lodge, near Northeast Harbor, was planned for this spot but was never built.) Because the lake continues to provide municipal drinking water swimming is prohibited, though anglers may fish for the togue, landlocked salmon, and brook trout EAGLE LAKE and Curran House, two small hotels. The stocked regularly. Size: 437 acres small steamer Wauwinnet brought guests Maximum depth: 110 feet across the lake to the Green Mountain Cog Water visibility: 36 feet Railroad, which briefly made a run up Cadillac Mountain. By the turn of the If there is one word that describes Eagle century, however, the railroad was gone and Lake, it would have to be pristine. Located the Wauwinnet lay at the bottom of the lake. just a couple of miles up Route 233 from Bar In 1910, though, rusticator Philip Harbor, this particular pond has served for Livingston's proposal to build a cottage on more than a century as the source of the the lake's east shore caused local tourist town's drinking water. And as such, it conservationists such as George B. Dorr to has come to represent the delicate détente take note. "While the threat might be small that has emerged between developers and in and of itself, they feared it was a conservationists on Mount Desert Island. harbinger of other cottages that would soon Even as rusticators' estates and, later, hotels follow," wrote a National Park Service report and camps spread across the island during in 2005. Dorr, considered the father of Sieur the nineteenth century, Eagle Lake - named de Monts National Monument and later by artists of the Hudson River School for the Acadia National Park, joined the Bar Harbor eagles spotted soaring overhead - remained Water Company and helped it buy up all of relatively pristine, save for the Lake House the land surrounding the lake, eventually SEAL COVE POND ospreys, and loons looking for an Size: 283 acres easy meal. Maximum depth: 44 feet The drive to Seal Cove Pond, if you Water visibility: 20 feet come from the east side of the island, may end up being half the adventure. With its shallow waters and marshy Many of the roads are dirt, and it might shores, Seal Cove Pond is a natural oasis take you a couple of hours to make it on Mount Desert Island's extreme west from Bar Harbor if you come through side. "It's definitely in contrast to Jordan Southwest Harbor and Bass Harbor. You'll Pond or Bubble Pond or some of the do better to come down Route 102 from more famous lakes that are on the east Pretty Marsh; keep an eye out for moose, side of the island," explains Bill Gawley, as this is about as likely a spot as any on a biologist with the National Park the island to see the lumbering woods Service. "Seal Cove Pond certainly has a denizens. Even in high summer only lot more going on, which makes it a lot about twenty-five people a day make it to more interesting biologically." Warm the roads around Seal Cove Pond, SO water fish like bass, perch, and sunfish you're likely to feel as alone as if you make their home in these shallow were deep in the Allagash. Camps and waters, which in turn draw bald eagles, private property are mostly on the 60 WWW.DOWNEAST.COM ECHO LAKE Each of Acadia's lakes has a unique feel, ledges at lke's Point just up the lake a bit, whether it's the pristine splendor of Size: 237 acres though rangers urge extreme caution), Eagle Lake (at left), the natural Maximum depth: 66 feet brand-new changing rooms, and the tranquility of Seal Cove Pond(bottom Water visibility: 30 feet dramatic steep backdrop of Beech and left), or the family-friendly sands at Acadia mountains. A wooden pathway Echo Lake (above). Side trips to each For those seeking a way to cool off during provides a handicapped-accessible of them between visits to Cadillac the summertime, Echo Lake, on the west entrance to the water, while the lifeguards Mountain and Thunder Hole will add or "quiet" side of Mount Desert Island, on duty from Memorial Day through Labor depth to any trip to Mount Desert Island. offers top-notch, lifeguard-protected Day help keep the volleyball games in swimming. Lifeguard counts indicate that control and answer such simple questions as how to decipher the free bus schedules and where the best hiking trails are located. One of the more interesting western side of the pond, so exploration features of this area includes the fire is best done on the east side, where you tower on the summit of Beech Mountain, a can stop and rest on national park land. three-story structure first built in 1941 and Perhaps more than any other lake or occasionally open to the public (ask the pond in Acadia, Seal Cove Pond lifeguards if the Beech Cliffs trail is open, represents the dramatic diversity of plant as it may be closed to protect nesting and animal life found on Mount Desert peregrine falcons). Island. With elevation ranging from sea Richard Rechholtz, the park ranger level to 1,530 feet atop Cadillac some 40 percent of the 13,000 visitors to who oversees lifeguards in the park, says Mountain, a maritime environment that the Echo Lake swimming area, on the that while Echo Lake provides swimmers consistently supplies nourishing fog and south side of the lake just off Route 102 with a welcome break from the busy and humidity, and a sea breeze that maintains near Southwest Harbor, put their sometimes blustery conditions at Sand cooler growing seasons and warmer swimsuits to use in the seventy-degree Beach, it's hardly as tranquil as it once winters, Acadia sustains a representative water (in contrast to the just 10 percent of was, as evidenced by the parking lot, range of 2,500 miles, encompassing visitors to Sand Beach who brave the fifty- which usually fills by noon. "I grew up plants of the arctic, Canadian zone, and five-degree ocean water there). Families here, and the west side of the island used southern coastal plain. To discover it and are enticed by Echo Lake's gently sloping to be quieter, but it's not so much now," he its lakes and ponds is to discover an sand beach that is ideal for the younger remarks. "Come the middle of summer, both island like none other. set (older kids may enjoy leaping from the sides of the island are busy these days." JUNE 2008 61