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By DEIRDRE FLEMING, Staff Writer Sunday, May 8, 2005

MOUNT DESERT ISLAND — Mainers Dave and Betsy Petell have been coming to Acadia National Park to bike for 15 years - but only in the spring. Rick Imes came from Vermont to bike through the park for the first time this April, and found the wildly popular outdoor destination just as he likes it: "I avoid the crowded season."

And Grace Sawyer left her home in Oregon for a tour of national parks this spring when she discovered the joy of cycling through national parkland with her dog - a rare treat that's possible at Acadia.

Certainly, Mount Desert Island's jewel is famous for its coastal scenery and dramatic glacial rock formations.

But for a savvy breed of cyclists, its 50 miles of carriage roads offer a different kind of park in the springtime.

"We hate crowds. You can never get a parking spot here in the summer," Dave Petell said in April, before packing up his bike rack for the three-hour trip back to Wayne.

The overall number of visitors who pass through Acadia National Park in a year is staggering.

In 2004, 2,207,996 visited the park, which was down from roughly 2,550,000 who enjoyed Acadia in 2002.

And many of those who visit the park use the carriage roads to bike.

In the summer, as many as 50,000 park visitors use the carriage roads each month, with roughly 85 percent coming to bike, said park ranger Charlie Jacobi.

But when the number of cyclists increases in the summer, Jacobi said, park rules assure the carriage roads offer a pleasant experience.

Surveys conducted in 1997, 2000 and 2003 asking bicyclists about their experience triggered work within the park to reign in reckless cyclists. Jacobi said it worked.

"A small percentage were dissatisfied, but the vast majority, probably 95 percent, are having an enjoyable experience," he said.

Still, by many accounts, the biking is better in the spring.

In April or May on a weekday, it's possible to bike for 30 minutes on the carriage roads without seeing anyone.

It's even possible to bike an entire morning and spend most of the time in solitude.

On a three-hour tour of the carriage roads during school vacation week, a pair riding from the Visitor's Center off Route 3 to Eagle Lake and Jordan Pond saw only about a dozen other cyclists.

They glided along the carriage roads, even back-tracked, and still encountered the same visitors they passed earlier.

This was why Petell and his wife, Betsy, traveled there at the end of April, as they do every year.

"We came to kayak at Jordan Pond in the summer once. We set off early, to avoid the crowds. (But) as we came back to the Jordan Pond House, the people all looked like ants on the shore," Betsy Petell said.

"We're sort of protective of (the park). It's unspoiled; it's so unique. Other national parks, it's just not the same as Acadia. This truly is our favorite spot."

Rightfully so. In 1976, the Petells honeymooned at Acadia.

In 30 year, Betsy Petell said, the romance of the pink and grey of the park's granite, the history etched into its stone bridges and the magnitude of Acadia's unusual backdrop has not changed much.

From 1913 to 1940, John D. Rockefeller financed and directed construction of the carriage roads with the idea that they would eliminate the noise pollution and fumes from automobiles. In the process, Acadia National Park became a byway for bicyclists.

Today, more than 50 miles of carriage roads connect throughout Acadia, passing under 17 stone bridges and beside two gate lodges.

The old-fashioned architecture is distinctive and beloved.

"I think it's so neat to imagine the rich people coming out and down the carriage roads in their horse-drawn carriages," said Sawyer of Beaverton, Ore.

Sawyer was on a cross-country trip from Oregon in April when she visited Acadia for the first time.

After cycling through national parks in Texas and Florida, she was delighted to find she could explore the carriage roads of Maine that wind above Jordan Pond and climb the mountain-cut trails with her small dog, Kumi.

"This is beautiful," Sawyer said, looking over Jordan Pond and the Atlantic Ocean beyond. "In the U.S., there are not a lot of parks that are dog-friendly."

For Mainers, Acadia may be close, but meditating on its natural beauty in the summer is a long shot.

But in the spring, quiet moments are easy to come by. In May, that $20 visitors fee goes a lot further without the crowds.

Staff Writer Deirdre Fleming can be contacted at 791-6452 or dfleming@pressherald.com.