It was no ordinary day hike. Starting on the west side of Mount Desert Island, Darron Collins, president of the College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor, teamed up with COA board member Winston Holt on Labor Day, Sept. 4, to trek clear across Acadia National Park. Navigating park trails from west to east, the two men hiked 20 major peaks and crossed Somes Sound by kayak, covering more than 31 miles in less than a day.
“It’s an interesting perspective, seeing the island as a complete journey like that,” said Holt, 52, of Seal Harbor. “To me it was very much an eye-opening experience.”
A part-time resident of the island, Holt recently became a registered Maine guide in recreation and has experience in adventure racing and hiking. But this was the first time he had hiked so many Acadia mountains in one continuous trek.
Collins, on the other hand, had done this sort of thing before. Last June, Collins solo hiked 40 peaks on the island across a 27-hour period to encourage COA alumni to donate money to the college’s annual fund. He also has led COA students on treks across the park.
The Labor Day trek to 20 peaks took Collins and Holt just over 16½ hours.
“This was more just a fun trip,” Collins, 46, said of the Labor Day hike. “I think it’s uncommon that a [college] president and a trustee member would do such a thing.”
“And we start the College of the Atlantic year tomorrow,” he added. “So it was a way to get mentally prepared for the college year.”
Collins, who graduated from COA in 1992, became the college’s president in July 2011. In addition to hiking, his outdoor hobbies include fly fishing and whitewater kayaking.
Holt also enjoys a wide variety of outdoor sports, including nordic and alpine skiing.
“The best gift ever given to me was an affinity for the woods and an interest in hiking and camping,” Holt said. “That was a gift from my grandfather and father, so I’ve passed that on to my three daughters. We spend a lot of family time in the woods wherever we go, and Maine is obviously our number one choice.”
When planning the Labor Day hike together, Holt and Collins created a route that would hit the island’s 10 tallest peaks, plus a handful of lesser mountains.
“It was pure selfish enjoyment of the beauty and splendor of the park,” Holt said. “It was particularly cool to think about it on the centennial of the National Park Service. … It was equally a physical and spiritual journey, that’s for sure.”
The trek began at 4 a.m. By the light of headlamps, Holt and Collins hiked to the top of Bernard Mountain, then continued west to the summit of Mansell Mountain. Skirting around the southern edge of Long Pond, they then traveled up and over Beech Mountain, Acadia Mountain, St. Sauveur Mountain, Valley Peak and Flying Mountain.
“Both of our families helped,” Collins explained. “They’d meet us at key spots with lunch and dinner and stuff like that.”
Collins said having a support crew on such a long, fast-paced hike is key to success and safety.
“We’re not talking about hiking in the wilds of Alaska,” Collins said. “There are no grizzly bears or poisonous snakes, but it doesn’t take much. You can really easily injure yourself, so it’s good having a crew that knows where you’ll plan on being and at what time.”
Reaching the shore of Somes Sound around 9:30 a.m., the two men hopped in kayaks and paddled across the sound just north of The Narrows. They then continued their trek, hiking to the top of Norumbega Mountain, Bald Peak, Parkman Mountain, Gilmore Peak and Sargent Mountain, the second-tallest mountain in the park at 1,373 feet above sea level.
From there, the pair turned south to hike Penobscot Mountain, then walked around the north end of Jordan Pond and between the famous Bubbles to scale Pemetic Mountain, the fourth-tallest mountain at 1,248 feet above sea level. By then, it was about 3:30 p.m.
“One of the coolest things was to be on top of Pemetic and to look west to where we’d walked,” Collins said.
Hurrying down the gradual north slope of Pemetic Mountain, Holt and Collins passed the northern tip of Bubble Pond to hike the famous Cadillac Mountain, the park’s tallest mountain at 1,530 feet above sea level. By then, they’d been hiking practically nonstop for about 12 hours.
“The biggest physical challenge was the West Face Trail of Cadillac Mountain,” Collins said. “I was just really tired by then, and that is a really steep, really long trail.”
When Collins and Holt arrived at the summit of Cadillac at around 5 p.m., their journey wasn’t over quite yet.
Descending the mountain’s east slope to the Gorge Path, they then scaled the equally formidable Dorr Mountain, named after George B. Dorr (1855-1944), a man known as the father of Acadia National Park. At 1,270 feet above sea level, the summit of Dorr Mountain is the third-tallest mountain in the park.
“It was amazing going the direction we did, which was from west to east,” Holt said. “When you get over onto the main trails, you can see the pressure that these trails have on them, and you can understand the importance of groups like Friends of Acadia that are doing so much to preserve, protect and strengthen those trails that are so high in foot traffic.”
Continuing west, they walked around The Tarn, up the rocky trail of Huguenot Head, over the summit of Champlain Mountain and past The Bowl and Beehive to reach their last peak: Gorham Mountain. Hiking by the light of headlamps once more, the two men made their final descent, ending their long walk at 8:30 p.m. at the Gorham Mountain parking lot on Park Loop Road, just south of Thunder Hole.
“Our next adventure is to do it in the winter on snowshoes,” Holt said.
To see a map of their journey, visit https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/1342375290.