|
Tuesday, July 5, 2005
Scaling Maiden Cliffs for a sheer thrill
Copyright © 2005 Blethen Maine Newspapers Inc. | ||||||||||
 |
Also on this page: Exploring Route 1 | |||||||||
CAMDEN — After an hour-long climb, resting on a rock above Lake Megunticook was as important to this novice climber as it was to the lady bug below or the turkey vulture above. Moments earlier, hanging by a hand and balanced on a toe in those crazy rubber shoes, what real rock climbers promise came true: You climb to remove your mind from the worries back home. You climb to become part of nature and nothing more. You climb to dance with a cliff; hold hands with a mountain; take off like a bird. Maybe it was wishful thinking, but from that narrow rock slab at the back of Camden Hills State Park, the view of Bald Mountain turned Maiden Cliffs into a wilderness. The calm we found on top of this cliff was our passport to another world. We might as well have cleared customs on the way through Route 1 in Camden, less than five minutes down the road. And yet, the outdoor adventure possibilities here in the heart of the midcoast are lost on most tourists who come to Maine. The section of Route 1 that runs through Camden has all the quaint charm of North Conway, N.H., but it's not quite the climbing mecca of the White Mountains, which has more rock faces and cliffs to climb. But local guides also say Camden draws more of an older crowd, which mirrors the population here. We traveled Route 1 from Lubec to southern Maine to discover the hidden outdoor adventures sometimes overlooked by locals and tourists. What we found was a largely untapped outdoor industry along Route 1. There were spectacular adventures that would be hard to duplicate anywhere else. The adventures were all affordable and many were free. Veteran climbing guide Jon Tierney said rock climbing is exploding in Maine as more rock gyms pop up and climbing walls are built in colleges and high schools. Yet in Camden Hills State Park, where ocean meets mountains, rock climbing has not grabbed the attention of the state's active crowd, Tierney said. There are individual guides who can be hired and a few companies in Maine that lead rock climbing adventures. One of the largest, and the one we used, is located in Bar Harbor and Orono: Acadia Mountain Guides Climbing School, which offers guided climbs in Maine and New Hampshire, as well as outside New England. A private full-day lesson in Camden costs $220, a tandem lesson costs $140, and a five-person lesson would be even cheaper, costing $85. Many of the Acadia school's trips are to exotic destinations, in Ecuador, Bolivia, and China, but some are right around the corner in Maine in places such as Clifton, outside of Brewer, Mount Desert Island, and the cliffs along the Kennebec and the Penobscot rivers. Rock climbing has long been viewed a sport for daredevils, but it need not be. Tierney said young climbers are mainstreaming the sport by picking it up at local rock gyms and schools and by encouraging fitness centers to install climbing walls. Tierney travels the state helping gyms do this. He led us on a safe yet mentally challenging climb up a sheer vertical cliff. Tierney explained the belay system: how he would, after free climbing and attaching himself to the rock with technical equipment, help guide us up the cliff with coaching and tips. But really, we'd be climbing alone. The type of climbing he did, called top roping, should only be done by experts. Yet Tierney made it look as easy as a squirrel scrambling up a tree. He suggested, as novice climbers, we use the climbing philosophy called "CLIMB," which means: concentrate, look, initiate the move and "boom." They key part here is the "boom." Any praise from Tierney usually only came after a boom, when we took a bold leap, took flight like a bird, metamorphosed into a flying squirrel. By the end, I felt like a veritable Rocky. Tierney's training tips made our journey up the rock seem more like a yoga class than a lesson in overcoming fear. Move. Balance. Breath. It's any wonder the cliffs were not filled with other climbers, like you find in North Conway. Tierney surmised this was because of Camden's demographics. The tourists who come to this funky, upscale coastal town on Route 1 mirror the residents, he said. And, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, nearly a fourth of Camden's population is over the age of 65. In fact, Census data shows that Maine's population, the third oldest in the country, is growing older. What that means for ecotourism, Tierney suggested, is a need to better educate young, adventure-hungry guides of the terrain here and ways to market the sport. Knowledgeable guides will draw the tourists, Tierney said. "People say 'Why do you train so many guides? You are training your competition.' And I say, 'That's just what I believe in.' But they're right," Tierney said. Unlike other states that market nature-based tourism on a full-time, statewide basis, Maine does not have an official or a task force devoted to this area, said Steve Lyons with the Office of Tourism Though the opportunity for adventure sports is ripe, there is no a statewide group promoting and teaching about Maine's natural resources, said Costas Christ, the head of the Bar Harbor Chamber of Commerce. "What we don't have at the state level is a statewide organized effort to pull all the individual pieces (of guides and businesses) into a collective whole," said Christ, the former director for Conservation International. Experienced climbers say Camden is a natural sell. "Camden is one of the highlights of climbing in Maine," said Elizabeth Wilder, a third-generation Maine guide. "There are nice routes already established, not to mention the spectacular views. "And Camden is really convenient. Climbers like to do things in the evening. Camden is a fun town." The state park above Main Street in Camden is an oasis of wildlife with 30 miles of hiking trails and the popular swimming spot at Lake Megunticook. "Nice thing about climbing here is you can go swimming after," Tierney said. From the top of the cliffs, you see only Route 52 running past the lake and nothing else but a checkerboard landscape of fir and spruce trees in the distance. Of course, while climbing, the views are secondary to the work at hand. During the last part of our final climb the only thing that mattered was how to get toes from throbbing in those tight rubber climbing shoes. With the ground some 20 feet below, and the rock ledge some 10 feet above, there were three options as Tierney saw it: "You can be lowered back down. You can loosen the shoes for a minute and hang there. Or, you can grit it out like the last mile of a race, and climb to the top," he said. A good guide knows how to motivate his students. So the shoes were loosened for a few minutes, and the toes ignored. Then the last 10 feet of that vertical rock face full of crags, incredibly, seemed as swift and easy as a walk on a city sidewalk. Rocky, at last, was on a cliff, kicking back, scouting for Bullwinkle.
Staff Writer Deirdre Fleming can be contacted at 791-6452 or at: dfleming@pressherald.com
|
||||||||||
Think Maine's Route 1 is just a series of businesses and farmland? We explored the coastal road for our Summer Adventure Series and found much more than that. See