Editor’s note: Trails can be slippery (and even icy) this time of year, especially near waterfalls. Wear shoes with proper traction and take care! Also, Chasm Brook Falls, Hadlock Falls, Little No Name Cascade, and Amphitheatre Cascade can only be accessed via carriage road. Please help us protect the carriage roads, and visit these spectacular sights after mud season. Check Acadia National Park’s “Current Conditions” page for the latest information on trail and carriage road openings.

BY CHARLIE JACOBI

When I think of Acadia’s delights, it’s not usually waterfalls that come first. Yea, Canon Brook is nice, so is Hadlock Brook at the Waterfall Bridge, Man o’ War Brook, and maybe the “B.A.D.” on Duck Brook (I politely forego spelling out the acronym).

What Acadia’s waterfalls lack in scale, they make up for in charm. With small watersheds, thin soils, and a lot of bare granite, we have what the ologists call “flashy streams.” They come up fast and go down fast. In a flash, so to speak. Having poked around this place for 40 years, and despite my brain occasionally feeling as flashy as the brooks, even I have accumulated some amount of local knowledge. As in where to go when brooks are flashing post diluvium (meaning “flood, inundation”) or even better, inter veris diluvium (in the middle of the flood or rain).

With a few inches of rain and during spring runoff, every little rill is filled, and Acadia becomes “Cascadia,” as the images below illustrate.

Some show familiar haunts with perhaps unfamiliar flows. Others show fleeting freshets that even I may never see exactly that way again. And there are multitudes of fleeting freshets if you are willing to look. Even the smallest ones can be infinitely interesting photo subjects. But you will never see the same falls I saw. Go see your own! I leave a few pictures here unidentified to kindle your curiosity and satiate your exploratory demands.

Note! Whilst embracing the adventure of waterfall hunting, do stay apprised of relevant closures in the park (including carriage road closures during “mud season.” Check the park website for current closures.

Although spelled and pronounced in a variety of ways, Canon Brook, after gathering several feeder streams, spills off the south and east sides of Cadillac Mountain delivering an array of smaller cascades and water slides each with its own architecture and personality. Canon Brook Trail here is sometimes better described as Canon Trail Brook.

(Photo courtesy Charlie Jacobi)

(Photo courtesy Charlie Jacobi)

For a relatively small watershed, Chasm Brook offers lovely 25’ drop right from the eponymous carriage road bridge. Get there inter veris diluvium – or soon thereafter!

(Photo courtesy Charlie Jacobi)

(Photo courtesy Charlie Jacobi)

From the Waterfall Bridge or the trail below framed by the arch, everyone passing by has likely seen it with the water turned on. Well, maybe not last summer.

(Photo courtesy Charlie Jacobi)

Kurt Diederich’s Falls, as I have come to call it, is exceptionally beautiful in high water, and you don’t have to go far up Kurt Diederich’s Climb for it. Looking at the extent of it from Route 3, it may well be the highest effectively continuous drop in the park.

(Photo courtesy Charlie Jacobi)

(Photos courtesy Charlie Jacobi)

Along the Amphitheatre Trail between the carriage road bridges, Little Harbor Brook bursts through this granite constriction. I’ve always found it appealing.

(Photo courtesy Charlie Jacobi)

The Amphitheatre Bridge frames the Amphitheatre Cascade. You could say I have appropriated the naming rights here and elsewhere because no one else has done so before me, and you would be right.

(Photo courtesy Charlie Jacobi)

Otter Creek gathers water from a large area, and its farthest headwater is behind the South Ridge Cadillac Trail sign by the summit parking area.

(Photo courtesy Charlie Jacobi)

(Photo courtesy Charlie Jacobi)

“Cryptic” as in I’m leaving them not geo-located and wish you good luck finding them. These are not the only cataracts on this lengthy watercourse, and they won’t look the same for you. Uust remember, if you look for falls at high water, you will find them all over.

(Photo courtesy Charlie Jacobi)

(Photo courtesy Charlie Jacobi)

Here are some places to look for falls you may not have seen during high water or known were there: along Cadillac Summit Road or Sargent Drive; Lower Mountain Road between the Summit Road and Bubble Pond; Deer Brook Carriage Road Bridge (of course); Hadlock Brook below Lower Hadlock Pond; Bubble Pond Carriage Road just south of the Pond Trail crossing; Razorback Trail; Sluiceway Trail; Canon Brook Trail between Dorr South Ridge and A. Murray Young Trails; Emery Path. For talking water try the Gorge Path and the A. Murray Young, Giant Slide, and Hunters Brook Trails.

Dress to stay dry and warm, prepare to get wet. You may need crampons. Everything will be slicker than the intertidal seaweed. Be sure to Leave No Trace by staying on durable surfaces.

If you want to see ‘em, carpe diem! And if at first you don’t succeed, dry out and try again. The time, of course, is now.

CHARLIE JACOBI retired from Acadia National Park in 2017 as a Natural Resource Specialist and has spent 40 years chasing waterfalls and snooping out other Acadian Delights.