Acadia National Park, ME 10/2

Notes from the mountaintop.

a.m.

It’s before 5:00 when we start the long crawl up the mountainside, rolling along fresh blacktop, a yellow strip guiding the way. Broken boulders line the borders of the road like sentries between the manmade surface and the unchecked nature lying in the vast darkness beyond. Even the full beam of the headlights can barely cut the atmosphere at this hour. Without their light upon the snaking road and the faint glow of the instrument panel we’d be completely untethered. Adrift on the ascent.

She looks out past the windshield and roadside boulders, down towards the rippling blanket of ocean far below, its great presence a shifting mass of reflected moonlight and stars.

We wait for the sunrise at the summit with figures dotted across the mountainside like pilgrims gathered for prayer. We stand on our pedestal of pink granite in the shrouded gloom, braced against the persistent chill of night air that still sweeps up across the rock, through the seams and openings of loose clothing and against our skin. We tremble in the brisk fog, anticipating the dawn. The brief moments where morning light breaks through the cloud summons an energy in the watchers, who will the mist to disperse and reveal the glory of an American daybreak over the jagged Eastern shore.

It never truly arrives, but shafts of sunlight tempt us through each passing hour.

Scattered applause rise from the crowd when a group of broad-winged hawks are spotted swooping across the scenery. Their presence lifting our spirits within the wrapped cloud of this mountaintop morning.

It’s only after we depart the summit and start our descent that we’re greeted by the full brightness of the cresting sun across the distant slopes, illuminating a quilt of early autumn foliage and the mirrored lakes below.

p.m.

Below a perch for fire spotting at another mountain’s peak, leaves of flame burn into the cold season. Latticed metal steps clang beneath feet and echo amid the birdcall caws and cricket chirps. Sat upon the granite to stare at ocean horizons and thatched islets across that open coveland. Then, down trod feet that ache after this blessed day of trail and pine needle and scramble on primal stones. Sunset comes and the peaks snatch the last light from this day.