Beta for Bar Harbor, August Vacation -

Going to Bar Harbor, ME around August 25th. I'm looking for moderate/easy sport & TR. 

Looking at otter cliff - what do the crowds look like? How can I track tides / expected low tide times of day?

There is no sport climbing that I'm aware of in Acadia. Fingers on a Seascape is a basically a short 5.10c sport climb but you have to do a pitch of trad to get up to it. You can't do a walkaround to set up a TR anywhere at the Precipice, to my knowledge. So you're left with the Otter Cliffs as your only option. There's some really good climbs there, A Dare by the Sea, Rock Lobster, and Guillotine are really fun. It's extremely crowded though, at some times the guiding companies have 3 huge parties there. You don't need to worry about the tides really unless you want to be able to rap in and lead back out, which it doesn't sound like you're interested in. Keep in mind that you need trad gear to set up 90% of the routes at the Otter Cliffs and it's a bit awkward since you have to place your gear in the ground and the edge of the cliff is very sharp. I build my anchors so that my gri gri is just barely over the edge, and then I sit on the edge and belay. Since you need a single rack for anchor building you might want to just take a crack at some of the easy trad climbing- you could lead Wafer Step (5.5) and then you can build an anchor on the bolts up top and TR Recollections of Pacifica and some other stuff. Let me know if you need any other info. 

There is some sport climbing on Canada Cliffs on the "other side" of the island (Echo Lake) but mostly hard to very hard, and a few other bolted routes scattered around. It is possible to get up to the base of "Fingers..." from the left with a bit of '4th class' climbing, this also lets you set up TRs on a few of the routes below--however  the "moderate/easy"  ones there are very popular so you shouldn't tie them up for a prolonged period--i.e., no 'fixed' top ropes. While there are usually guided groups at Otter during the summer they only occupy a few climbs and it is otherwise not too busy, so you should be able to find routes to set TRs on. One possibility for "moderate/easy" sport are the crags around Clifton, ME about an hour inland SE of Bangor. A lot of the routes there are mixed or trad but there are some fully bolted ones and TR possibilities as well. To my knowledge there is no current dedicated guidebook but a good selection of routes is included in Stewart Green's Rock Climbing New England published by Falcon Books.

Thomas Constantino wrote:

Looking at otter cliff - what do the crowds look like? How can I track tides / expected low tide times of day?

Might be a few groups there but it won't be bad. There's established lines for top roping but they're honestly kind of hard to locate even with the guidebook. You'll probably just end up throwing your gear onto the staples and take your chances with whatever features the rope happens to be near.

As for tides, google for "tide charts" and pick your favorite link.

The local  free  papers also have tide charts.  Best time for otter is after 5 pm  when the  guides  leave. There is a clifton crags  guide book. Check at alpenglow  in orono.

 Tom,

 Check your PMs

 Jim

Thank you everyone. Two thumbs up for "guides leave around 5pm."