Cadillac Summit Stewards: 2016 final report
McDonough A, Ley S, Ober K, Painter M, Murphy S. 2016. Cadillac Summit Stewards: 2016 final report. National Park Service, Acadia National Park and Friends of Acadia. Bar Harbor, ME
From the introduction: "Visitors from all reaches of our planet perch atop the open summit of Cadillac Mountain and contemplate the breath-taking view. Standing at 1,530ft above sea level, Cadillac is the highest point on the entire Eastern Seaboard of North America. Cadillac Mountain’s iconic sunrise, rich history and wonderful views of the open Atlantic draw a staggering number of visitors to the summit. However, when there is such extreme visitation to any natural resource, the resource inevitably suffers degradation. This can range from the light footsteps of careful visitors to complete disregard of the waste bins and restoration areas by less mindful guests to the summit. The summit experiences a vast number of visitors coming up by bicycles, personal vehicles, busses, and determinedly, by foot. Once all the visitors reach the top, vehicle traffic can become dangerous, parking violations occur, visitors refuse to comply to park pass regulations, Bate’s cairns suffer abuse, and the subalpine environment is trodden over and harmed. Until 2014, only a few hours each week were allotted to the stewardship of Cadillac Mountain by park rangers due to constrained resources in the Park Service. Now, through Acadia National Park’s partnership with Friends of Acadia, the Cadillac Summit Stewards are able to assist with protecting the pink granite giant centered in the park during the extremely busy Summer and Fall. Funded by Friends of Acadia and educated by the Park Service, Cadillac Summit Stewards are the current frontline of defense for resource protection, and many visitors’ first smiling contact with a park based employee."
- Type
- Published Report
- Authors
- McDonough, Alanna; Ley, Stephanie; Ober, Kristen; Painter, Maggie; Murphy, Shane
- Date of Issue
- 2016
- Publisher
- National Park Service, Acadia National Park and Friends of Acadia
- Units
- ACAD
- Keywords
- Bicycling, Buses, Carrying capacity, Facilities, Geologic formations, Human impact, Human use, Mountains, Parking area, Roads, Social trails, Traffic, Trail use, Trails, Trampling, Transportation, Visitor experience, Visitor use, Visitors