FEATURE: There's a Cool Way to Get Up Cadillac WITHOUT a Reservation
THINGS TO DO: Riding on the Cadillac Shuttle With Ellen Finn
BAR HARBOR––One of the most popular activities in Acadia National Park, for visitors and locals alike, is watching the sun make its first appearance over the eastern horizon. In the past, you could look at the weather forecast the night before and if it looked promising, plan an impromptu trip up the mountain at some unreasonably early hour.
Since May 26, 2021, however, the park service has required a reservation for every passenger vehicle that wants to traverse the Cadillac Summit Road from the end of May until the end of October. You have to make your reservations online at recreation.gov and you have to create an account before actually being able to purchase a reservation.
Reservations outside of the sunrise window, 4 a.m. – 5:30 a.m., are not so hard to get as long as you have a little flexibility in your day. Getting a reservation to watch the sunrise takes a little more work and a lot more dependence on weather forecasting. Tickets for sunrise reservations are released at 10 a.m. every morning for two days later. Meaning, you have to plan a minimum of two days in advance for your early wakeup and hope that the weather forecasters were correct.
On July 20, at 10:03 a.m., I checked for available reservations for the sunrise window on July 22, and they were already sold out.
Now, though, you don’t have to worry about all of that if you want to go up Cadillac Mountain, in fact, you don’t even have to drive yourself! Local resident Ellen Finn has started Cadillac Mountain Summit Shuttle and will be happy to drive you up the mountain. Or even down for that matter.
I took a ride with Ellen up and down the mountain recently to see what it was all about. I met Ellen at her in-town stop which is located at the back of Everyday Joe’s, at 317 Main St., Bar Harbor. We departed for the summit at 12:01, right on schedule.
During the ride out of town and up the mountain, I found it to be relaxing not to have to be driving. It is so much nicer to be able to actually look around and enjoy the views than to be concentrating on the other vehicles all around you. Ellen is very personable and chatty if prompted and her driving left me at ease.
While she drove, Ellen told me that during her years of being a tour guide for different local tour companies, she received many requests for rides from people who had hiked up the mountain and didn’t really want to have to walk back down to their vehicles at the trailhead. The tour companies who employed her didn’t allow that to happen. Then the park instituted its reservation system and she decided that there was a business opportunity available.
So, Ellen wrote a business plan on an old iPhone, enlisted some help from small business advisors, and eventually bought herself a van. A very large 14-passenger Mercedes Benz van that is also equipped with child safety seats, a dog kennel, a bike rack, and room for a wheelchair to be stored in the back. Ellen seems to really love her van, which she has named Bessie, and told me that in a few years she plans on converting it to a camper van and converting herself to the “van life.”
When we reached the entry gates at the base of the mountain, Ellen started chatting with park service workers who were directing traffic or manning the booths. She is, after all, a regular, now having passed through these gates so many times already this year.
She turned to me and said, “Hopefully, they won’t give me a hassle about you not having a park pass. I will just tell them that you are doing a story about the shuttle service and will be coming right back down with me.”
And they didn’t. I think Ellen has built casual relationships and a certain amount of trust due to her frequent passage in and out. She’s that kind of person: friendly and trustworthy, just the sort of person you want driving you up a mountain and back down.
This interaction did make me realize one important factor that I had temporarily forgotten, even though Ellen can get you up or down the mountain, you still need a park pass to enter the park through any gated entry, including Cadillac Mountain. Ellen will make sure that you have a park pass before you board the shuttle and if you have forgotten, you can buy one at the gate once you get there.
As we drove after getting through the gates, I realized that it has been a very long time since I have driven up Cadillac Mountain, and I had forgotten how beautiful it is. The distant vistas seemed almost new to me and I wasn’t sure if that was because I had made the drive in so long ago or because I wasn’t the one actually driving for once.
Once we reached the summit, Ellen effortlessly guided the van through the tight parking lot until we reached the bus parking area, where she pulled in and stopped. We both got out to stretch our legs, and I took advantage of my five minutes of freedom while she looked for anyone who wanted to go back down the mountain.
When I returned to the shuttle, there were two new occupants, Geoffrey Ax and Annette Benefield who had travelled up the mountain with Ellen an hour ago. When I asked them why they had chosen to use the shuttle, they said that they had a vehicle that they could use, but they were travelling separately and their overlap of time together in Bar Harbor was very short and they just didn’t want to hassle with trying to get a reservation.
We departed back down the mountain promptly at 12:30.
Geoffrey, of Arlington, Virginia said, “I was really happy to learn about the shuttle service when somebody told me about it. I really enjoyed the convenience of the service and not having to deal with the park’s reservation system.” Geoffrey was leaving Bar Harbor that evening and wanted to see the summit with a family friend.
Annette, of Cedartown, Georgia, who is Geoffrey’s family friend and who had only been in town for two days wanted to see the summit and said, “Ellen is full of knowledge about the area and answered our questions wonderfully as we drove.”
During the ride down the mountain, Ellen chatted with her passengers and told me that she has one other place that she is allowed by the park service to stop at. Once we reached the base of the mountain and had turned right to head back to town, she pointed out the Island Explorer bus pick-up and drop-off area and Ellen said that she is allowed to stop there and drop off or pick up passengers.
Ellen said that this allows her to be able to take people from the top of the mountain who have hiked up the mountain from the Northridge Trailhead and drop them off about a five-minute walk away from the trailhead parking area. She said lots of people underestimate the climb, the weather turns bad, or maybe they have young children and just don’t want to walk back down the mountain.
Local resident, Steven Glass, is one of those people who hiked up Cadillac Mountain and found himself a little behind schedule when he arrived at the summit. He posted about his experience on Facebook. “I was running late after a hike up a literally overflowing Gorge trail up Cadillac (feet soaked, meh), needed to get home, and ran into Ellen—magic. Perfect for guests that couldn't get reservations, too!”
He said that he especially liked that that there are no reservations needed.
The shuttle departs from Everyday Joe’s at the top of the hour, every hour, from 4 a.m. thru 8 p.m.. The drop-off and pick-up point at the Cadillac Mountain summit is the bus parking zone across the street from the gift shop restroom area. The shuttle departs from the summit on the bottom of the hour and the last departure for the day is at 8:45 p.m.
Passengers can go one way or round trip, and if you ever find yourself at the top or bottom of the mountain and need a way down or up, Ellen will be there for you!
A one-way ticket is $10.00 and a round trip ticket is $20.00. Dogs are $5.00 extra. MDI locals, workers, and students are half-priced and just need to show a local I.D. or I.D. and local paystub. The shuttle accepts credit cards but prefers cash if you have it. You do not need reservations, it is first come, first served, and round trip ticket holders receive preference when coming back down from the summit.
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