Acadia National Park

LEND A HAND Randolph, New Hampshire Members of the venerable Randolph Mountain Club ( randolphmountainclub.org ), founded in 1910 in northern New Hampshire, care for more than 100 miles of trails on three majestic Presidential peaks — Adams, Madison, and Jefferson — as well as Randolph's town trails located in the Crescent Range. Volunteer Trail Days on Saturdays in July and the beginning of August invite the public to give a little back with their backs.

LEND A HAND Randolph, New Hampshire Members of the venerable Randolph Mountain Club ( randolphmountainclub.org ), founded in 1910 in northern New Hampshire, care for more than 100 miles of trails on three majestic Presidential peaks — Adams, Madison, and Jefferson — as well as Randolph's town trails located in the Crescent Range. Volunteer Trail Days on Saturdays in July and the beginning of August invite the public to give a little back with their backs.

A 52-year-old man died while cross-country skiing in Acadia National Park in Maine. Park officials say Duncan Rosborough of Mount Desert was found shortly before 7 a.m. yesterday on the park’s carriage road system. They say Rosborough, who left home late Saturday to ski a park carriage road loop, was an experienced skier and apparently died of natural causes.

The Maine Forest Service says a survey crew has begun a search Down East for signs of an invasive insect that's already damaged trees along southern Maine's coast. A Forest Service crew is looking for evidence of hemlock woolly adelgid on Mount Desert Island. The crew also will work with national park and U.S. Forest Service staff to survey in Acadia National Park before moving on to coastal Waldo, Hancock and Washington counties. Forest entomologist Allison Kanoti says the invasive insect was reported last year at two sites on the island and in January in Alfred, suggesting that...

Acadia National Park makes up half of Isle au Haut in coastal Maine, where visitors can spend hours exploring the 18 miles of trails on the shoreline and hillsides. By day, check out the park and ponder the sea, looking for dolphins, seals, and whales as well as lobstermen hauling their pots. By night, stay in the third-floor garret of the Keeper's House Inn (207-460-0257, keepershouse.com, $385, including meals), attached to the Robinson Point Light , also on Isle au Haut. The inn is lit with lanterns and candles only.- Patricia Harris and David Lyon

BAR HARBOR, Maine -- You don't go to the Holland Inn for rooms with frilly curtains, doll collections, and Queen Anne chairs, though the accommodations are appealing. You don't go for stuff-you-to-the-gills breakfasts, though the meals are ample, scrumptious, and upon request, tailored to your diet. Nor do you go to sit on a deck and gaze at the sea or hills of nearby Acadia National Park, though it takes just minutes to stroll a few blocks to a sandbar at low tide and glimpse Cadillac Mountain.

In an annual rite of fall, Acadia National Park is closing one of its visitor centers and its Sand Beach entrance station as the cold-weather season arrives. Park officials say the Hulls Cove visitor center and the Sand Beach station are closing Monday for the season. During the winter, park information is available at the winter visitor center at park headquarters. The park's popular Park Loop Road is slated to close on Dec. 1, unless a major snowstorm forces an earlier closure.

Acadia National Park Box 177 Bar Harbor, Maine 207-288-3338 www.nps.gov/acad Start your trip with a stop at the Hulls Cove Visitors Center on Route 3 before you reach Bar Harbor. Where to stay Balance Rock Inn 21 Albert Meadow Bar Harbor 800-753-0494 207-288-2610 www.balancerockinn.com Doubles from $225, including breakfast. Where to eat Cafe This Way 14 Mt. Desert St. Bar Harbor 207-288-4483 www.cafethisway.com A good place to grab a cup of joe and read a book.

The Maine Forest Service says a survey crew has begun a search Down East for signs of an invasive insect that's already damaged trees along southern Maine's coast. A Forest Service crew is looking for evidence of hemlock woolly adelgid on Mount Desert Island. The crew also will work with national park and U.S. Forest Service staff to survey in Acadia National Park before moving on to coastal Waldo, Hancock and Washington counties. Forest entomologist Allison Kanoti says the invasive insect was reported last year at two sites on the island and in...

ACADIA NATIONAL PARK, Maine — Cheered by a key victory in Congress and good news from the oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, President Obama began a weekend holiday yesterday on a sun-dappled mountain peak overlooking the rocky Atlantic coast. Within hours of landing at the Bar Harbor airport in a smaller version of Air Force One, Obama, his wife, Michelle, and daughters Malia and Sasha were clambering over the granite outcrops at the summit of Cadillac Mountain in Acadia National Park.

SEAL HARBOR, Maine - The sun rises over Sutton Island and the Cranberry Isles. I'm walking by myself, following the carriage roads, circumnavigating the shore of Little Long Pond at the base of Sargent Mountain and Penobscot Mountain on the south side of Acadia National Park. In fair weather this part of the park is lively with summering preppies. Pastel picnickers spread out blankets in the meadows, retrievers fetch sticks from the pond, horse people drive their carriages up and down the mountains - Martha Stewart, who has a summer house here, can be seen riding her Friesian horses along the roads and over...

In an annual rite of fall, Acadia National Park is closing one of its visitor centers and its Sand Beach entrance station as the cold-weather season arrives. Park officials say the Hulls Cove visitor center and the Sand Beach station are closing Monday for the season. During the winter, park information is available at the winter visitor center at park headquarters. The park's popular Park Loop Road is slated to close on Dec. 1, unless a major snowstorm forces an earlier closure.

But seriously, if the two-man, right-wing Axis of Evil - brothers Charles and David Koch - didn't exist, the neurasthenic left wing would have had to invent them. Where to begin? I've been hanging out on the website of the Center for Public Integrity which calls itself a "nonpartisan, nonprofit investigative news organization. " At the CPI, it seems as if every day is Fear the Dread Koch Brothers Day. Last week, the Center noted that the Kochs - pronounced like the drink "Coke" - who own a vast pile of refineries and chemical plants, have been resisting post-9/11 security regulations.

MOUNT DESERT ISLAND, Maine - Developer Shepard Harris has spent summers in Maine since childhood, so he knows the state’s vast stretches of unblemished space are precious. But his decision to keep this island’s largest remaining piece of undeveloped land from being dotted with homes came down to something more pragmatic: a tax break. Last Monday, a land preservation group paid $2 million for Harris’s tract - 516 acres of forest and wetlands adjacent to Acadia National Park - about half of its appraised value.

ISLE AU HAUT, Maine — Islands have a way of simplifying your choices. For example, there is only one restaurant here on this slip of an island (eye-la-ho) off the coast near Stonington. The Black Dinah Cafe, named for the peak just behind it, dishes scones, sweet breads, such as banana-coconut chocolate swirl, sandwiches, soups and, on Saturday, chocolate doughnuts. Isle au Haut was relatively unknown outside the region until resident writer and fishing boat captain Linda Greenlaw (“The Hungry Ocean’’)

A 52-year-old man died while cross-country skiing in Acadia National Park in Maine. Park officials say Duncan Rosborough of Mount Desert was found shortly before 7 a.m. yesterday on the park’s carriage road system. They say Rosborough, who left home late Saturday to ski a park carriage road loop, was an experienced skier and apparently died of natural causes.

BANGOR -- The number of visitors to state parks in Maine declined this year, although park revenues have increased. The park system took in $2.61 million from park pass fees in 2005, compared with $2.37 million in 2004, said David Soucy, director of the state parks and lands bureau. "That's got to be due to the fee increase," Soucy said. Entrance fees to state-owned ocean and freshwater beaches were raised $1 this year to offset the cost of hiring lifeguards, he said.

The Maxwell Hotel in Seattle’s Lower Queen Anne neighborhood has a boutique feel and an artsy, modern decor that reflects its location in the theater district (just steps from the Seattle Opera’s home, McCaw Hall, and KeyArena, on the site of the 1962 World’s Fair). Walk a few blocks to the Space Needle. Hop on the monorail to downtown shops and Pike Place Market ($4 round trip). Or borrow a hotel cruiser bike and explore miles of off-street bike paths. Each room in this independent, child-friendly hotel comes with a microwave, fridge, and coffeemaker.