ANEMONE CAVE - THE DEVIL'S OVEN

Once years ago you could pick up a trail map of Acadia national Park and find Anemone cave clearly marked on it.  Than the National Park Service decided to abandon it, like so many other trails in the park, and it suddenly stopped appearing on any map produced of Acadia National Park.  Signs were removed, even the steel railings that got people safely from the cliff down to the cave entrance were cut and removed.  Today there is no signs at all that an ancient sea cave is even there, even though the sea cave has gone nowhere - it is still there.

ANEMONE CAVE - SCHOONER HEAD - ACADIA NATIONAL PARK

There are two ways to reach the start of the Anemone sea cave trail.  The first method is the easiest.  Drive along the one way section of the park loop road, keep driving as if headed to Sand Beach.  You will see the entrance station coming up in awhile, where they collect fee's for entering the park.  If you don't have a park pass, don't panic, you will not be passing through the fee station.
As you approach the fee station, be in the left hand lane, and turn onto the road just beofre entering the fee station - this takes you to Schooner Head Overlook parking lot.  You drive straight into the parking area by going straight  at the four way intersection.  Left is the Schooner Head road which leads to route 3.  Right goes to Great head trail.

ANEMONE CAVE - ACADIA NATIONAL PARK

At the parking lot, you will see a sign by a wooden rail fence.  The sign use to tell you about Anemone cave.  Follow the narrow paved path down through the woods.  It will come out at the top of a high cliff.   at this point you are standing on the roof of the cave.
Many make their way down to the cave entrance from the right of the cliff, footing can be slippery and the way down steep.  Another approach to the cave entrance is from the left, the way I like to take.  Simply follow the narrow rough path along the top of the cliff, until you come to a long gully that heads down toward the ocean, moving toward the right, back in the direction of the cave.  The gully will pretty much lead you to the entrance of the cave.  The cave can only be entered at low tide, and a good pair of shoes is a must, as the inside of the cave is wet and very slippery.

 the second way to reach Schooner Head parking lot is by taking route 3 out of Bar Harbor, heading in the direction of Otter Creek.  Once you pass the town ball fields, you will begin to go uphill, near the top of the hill is Schooner Head Road.  Take Schooner head road to the four way intersection, and turn left into the Schooner Head parking area.
One other way of reaching the sea cave is to simply get onto the free Island Explorer bues, you want the Sand Beach bus for this.  Tell the driver when you board the bus you want to get off by the entrance fee station.  Now walk to the road before the fee station and keep walking until your at the Schooner Head parking area (it is a very short walk).

MAP OF SAND BEACH
ACADIA NATIONAL PARK

THE DEVIL'S OVEN - Anemone Cave
Acadia National Park

ANEMONE CAVE - THE DEVIL'S OVEN GPS

path begins at parking lot;
latitude    -    44 20' 23" N
longitude  -    68 10' 38" W

cliff and roof of cave;
latitude    -    44 20' 25" N
longitude -    68 10' 36" W

ANEMONE CAVE
Bar Harbor Times
September 3, 1959

"A leisurely tour of Schoodic's shoreline will reveal its infinite variety."
At the parking lot at the foot of Champlain Mountain, a sign explain's, "These are the highest cliffs in Acadia National Park."  They rise, almost sheer, 800 feet.  Their formation is due to the work of the great ice-sheet which rode over the mountains from the North.
"If you wish, you may climb these cliffs via the Precipice Trail that starts from here.  There are iron rungs and ladders to make your ascent possible.
There are three signs at the Anemone Cave parking lot.  One speaks of Schooner Head, visible from that point.
"The seaward face of the headland has the likeness in whitened rock of a schooner under full sail.  It also has a Spouting Horn - a wave-carved cave with the roof fallen in.  Schooner Head is private property.
At the cave end of the new path leading down from the parking lot the sign says, "ANEMONE CAVE;  few examples of the sea's destruction power along Acadia's shore are more dramatic then Anemone Cave."  Here is this zone of complex and intensely cracked rock, the surging waves of countless storms have bored their way 82 feet into the cliff.
"When the ten foot tides recede from the cave's darkened interior, pools of sea-water remain to form the home of myriad and colorful plants and animals.  Most conspicuous of these is the bright pink enamel-like crust lining these tide-pools.  It is a living plant...a correlline alga.  And looking like reddish-brown rosetles are the many sea-anemones,  These flower-like animals resembling miniature dahlias give Anemone Cave its name.
About half of the tests were authored by Freeman Tilden, a National Park Services writer.  Mr. Tilden is the author of a book, The National Park;  What They Mean To You And Me, which is available in most of the bookstores on the island.
The signs themselves were manufactured in the Park Shop by the maintenance staff.  Most of them are set just a few degrees off horizontal well below the line of vision so that they do not obstruct the view.  The lettering of the text stamped into the face of the unpainted wood is legible and easy to read.
Similar signs have been erected in most of the National Park areas, and there will be more erected in Acadia in time to come.

Cave can be entered at low tide

DEATHS IN ACADIA NATIONAL PARK

SCHOONER HEAD - ACADIA NATIONAL PARK

THE MODERN SHOE REPAIR SHOP
Southwest Harbor Maine

SIEYE de MONTS PARK
Bar Harbor

LAFAYETTE SPORTS SHOP
28 Cottage Street, Bar Harbor

BAR HARBOR TEA COMPANY
Eden Street, Bar Harbor

ST SAUVEUR HOTEL
Mount Desert Street, Bar Harbor

U - DRIVE IT TAXI CO.
Cottage Street, Bar Harbor

College student dies in sea cave during climb

By Diana Graettinger, BDN staff • October 14, 1993 12:00 am
BAR HARBOR — A rock-climbing adventure ended in tragedy Tuesday night when a 20-year-old College of the Atlantic student died after he became trapped in a sea cave on the side of a cliff at Acadia National Park.

Rangers speculated that extreme cold temperatures, pounding rain, assaultive winds and high tide prevented Douglas Rose from climbing up the face of the cliff to safety, and that he may have drowned. They said the cave could be reached only by the climbing rope he had descended just hours before.


During a briefing at ranger headquarters at Acadia National Park on Wednesday, Chief Ranger Norman Dodge described what led to one of the most dramatic recovery efforts he had seen at the park during his 18 years of employment.

Dodge said that Rose, with fellow climber Paul Ryan, 20, an employee at Cadillac Mountain Sports in Bar Harbor, were at Great Head to challenge one of the most difficult rock-climbing areas at the park.

Wednesday was a difficult day for Rose’s friends and classmates at College of the Atlantic, whose faces reflected the horror they felt while they stood quietly in the back of the room listening to Dodge recount the tragic events that led to Rose’s death. Rose was a junior at COA.


Rose’s parents, Clayton and Sue Rose of Manchester, Conn., were notified of their son’s death and they arrived in Bar Harbor at 4 a.m. Wednesday, when they were sequestered in a motel.

Although Rose’s parents were contacted in Connecticut, school officials said their records showed Rose’s home address as Wilbraham, Mass.

The climbers walked about a half-hour Tuesday, across rocky terrain, to get to the climbing area, then lowered themselves on two ropes to the floor of the cliff after securing their equipment, Dodge said. At low tide, they made their way across boulders and into the sea cave, where they attached their equipment to the top of the cave and were able to walk across the ceiling.


Dodge said the two men were experienced climbers, but that they encountered problems when the high tide interfered with their climb out of the sea cave. He said that in order to leave the cave, the men had to make a “Tarzan-type swing” out of its mouth to reach the vertical ropes.

“The wind and wave action, the weather and the tide seemed to come faster than they had seen it here before. The waves were coming directly into the cave, so the climbing window was shortened,” he said.

Dodge said the men realized the urgency, and left their climbing gear behind.


Ryan was the first to make the climb back. “He (Ryan) went well into the ocean before he reached the vertical (line). The surf was high, and it was difficult, but he said that he cooled himself mentally and just climbed up like he ordinarily would,” Dodge said.

Once he was about halfway up the face of the cliff, Ryan looked back to his companion and offered words of encouragement.

“He (Rose) fixed his equipment on the rope, swung out to the vertical and went well into the water, where there was serious wave action and surf. … Although he was putting out a lot of effort and trying to climb, because of fatigue or maybe hypothermia — because they had been out in the cold all day and they were wet — he was unable to ascend the rope,” Dodge said.

After about 45 minutes of trying to help his friend, Ryan attached Rose’s rope to the cliff and made his way in the dark to the Bar Harbor Police Station.

“He arrived at the Bar Harbor Police Station around quarter-past eight last night, and this incident happened around 5 p.m., so a long time had passed,” Dodge said.

Rescuers and a 40-foot U.S. Coast Guard boat rushed to the scene.

“So last night, in the blackest of downpours and with the wind howling like a hurricane … a member of Mount Desert Island Search and Rescue was able to climb down the rope to a point where he could see into the cave. He could see that Rose was tethered on a rope and pretty much free-floating in the surf and face down,” Dodge said. “He made a determination he was dead.”

Rescue efforts were halted until 6 a.m. Wednesday.

“This time a ranger climbed down and was able to pendulum-swing into the cave. He got within 15 or 20 feet of the body when the surf really picked up. He was completely submerged two or three times and we had to pull him up,” Dodge said.

The rescuers returned to the site at 1 p.m. They climbed down to an area that was accessible by foot. A ranger then crept across the face of the rocks, and attached the safety ropes that other rescuers would use to cross the bottom of the sharp cliff and recover the body.

Dodge said the ropes the men had climbed down on Tuesday had been severed by pounding wave action during the night.

As the surf continued to sweep the rocks, onlookers sitting on the side of the cliff watched the recovery efforts. At 2:30 p.m. a climber had secured the ropes and made the lateral climb back. Other climbers, using the strength in their arms and legs, and at times suspended in midair with their backs to the sea, then moved carefully across the outcropping. It took them about 10 minutes to reach Rose’s body.

The body was placed in an evacuation bag containing flotation jackets, a line was tied to it, and the line was thrown to the Bar Harbor harbor master’s boat and the crew recovered the body. The recovery was completed by 3:30 p.m. Rose’s body was taken to a funeral home in Bar Harbor.

COA student Josh Jamieson, who said he had once roomed with Rose, described Rose as a very likable person.

“He was a nice guy, an outdoorsman. He enjoyed his outdoor activities and did them well. He was generally a well-rounded guy, and he had a lot of friends,” he said.


VIDEO OF ANEMONE CAVE - ACADIA NATIONAL PARK