Hiker use of selected trails and trail intersections in Acadia National Park, 2013

Jacobi, Charles

From Summary: "In a change of pace from 19 years of summit counts, volunteers counted hiker traffic at three intersections throughout the park in July and August and weekends in September from 11 :00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. Trail counters were operated at two long-term monitoring sites on the Gorham Mountain and Triad Trails. At another trail counter site on the new Kebo Brook Trail, data was unusable due to technical problems. Cadillac Mountain South Ridge Trail/Canon Brook Trail was the most popular of the three intersections, with 47.3 individual hikers per hour, followed by the Acadia Mountain/Man o War Brook Trail/Valley Peak/Valley Cove Trail with 34.4 and the Asticou Trail/Penobscot Mountain with 10.4. For the Cadillac Mountain South Ridge Trail site, the vast majority of traffic was north and south on the Cadillac South Ridge Trail. Few used the Canon Brook Trail to the east or the west, and of those that did, more used the trail east down the brook. For the Asticou Trail site, the majority of traffic was east and west on the Asticou Trail, with somewhat more traffic to and from the Jordan Pond House (east). Few used the Penobscot Mountain Trail, and of those that did, most were ascending. For the Mano War Brook Trail site, the vast majority of traffic was making a loop on the Acadia Mountain and Mano War Brook Trails, hiking Acadia Mountain first. Few used the Valley Cove or Valley Peak Trails to the south. The number of dogs off leash per hour is a statistic we have tracked with our summit counts in the past. For all three intersections together, there were 0.44 dogs off leash per hour of observation. This is very high compared to our summit count data which is shown in Table 2. In summit counts we also lumped several sites together for this statistic. The outlier site in 2013 is the Man o War Brook Trail intersection where 44% of dogs (12/27) were observed off leash at the intersection. We do not have an explanation for this unless this loop hike is used by more local and summer residents, or it is simply random variation. Between May 1 and October 31, 2013, the Gorham Mountain Trail counter recorded a traffic count of 58,561. August 2013 was the busiest August by a considerable amount, with mean traffic of 657 +/- 70 and a total traffic count of nearly 20,000. The busiest days were August 7, July 24, and August 15 with traffic counts of 1,001,931, and 908 respectively. There were six other days in August and two in July with traffic counts greater than 800. Many of the busiest days in July and August on the Gorham Mountain Trail matched up with the busiest days on the carriage roads and the Sand Beach and Paradise Hill Road traffic counters. In contrast to the heavily used Gorham Mountain Trail, the Triad Trail counter recorded a count of 2,222 from May 1 - October 31, 2013. Mean daily traffic in August was 24 +/-5. August I 1, 2013 was the busiest day on the Triad Trail with a traffic volume of 65, but there were no good correlations with other measures of park use. Based on the six years of data, peak traffic volume is about 50 - 60 in July or August and the highest monthly mean daily use is about 20 - 25 in August. There was no evidence at either trail counter site of any effect from the sequester in April and May probably because the Ocean Drive and Jordan Pond Road were still open to traffic. The October shut down however is evident at both sites, especially Gorham Mountain, where traffic dropped about 2,000 from most other years. The Ocean Drive was closed from October 1 - 16."

Hiker use of selected trails and trail intersections in Acadia National Park, 2013

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