Some of actually live here year round, so it isn’t a ghost town, and we’re getting more winter visitors every year. A handful of restaurants and shops will be open.

The ground is currently bare

Thunder Hole is accessible in winter, however the park will close the road during snow storms and then clean it up and reopen Ocean Drive after the storm is over. To get there in the winter you drive down Schooner Head Road and turn right at the 4 way stop at the end. Turn left onto the one way park loop road and go through the entrance station. Stop at Sand Beach for a bit, and then continue to Thunder Hole. The road closes just before Otter Cliffs, so you’ll be forced to turn right onto Otter Cliff Road instead of continuing on Park Loop Road. At the end of Otter Cliff Road turn right to head back to Bar Harbor.

A recent change is they now man the entrance station some of the time in winter, and you’re supposed to display a pass regardless, so you’ll want a park pass. You can buy one at the entrance station, at the chamber of commerce on Bar Harbor (the park shares it in the winter because the ANP visitors center is closed), or online. In the winter sometimes they sell discounted annual passes (in person only). They used to advertise that passes were only required May-October, but that is no longer the case.

A large portion of the Park Loop Road is closed to cars in winter, but it’s currently snow free and great for biking.

The Ocean Drive section of park loop road is open. This goes by the iconic ANP spots of Sand Beach and Thunder Hole.

I live in Bar Harbor. Town was actually pretty vibrant today. Lots of people around. A small number of restaurants are open, and a few shops.

When I was in college I broke down on the interstate near Newport. Didn’t have a cell at the time. Only person that stopped to help me was a dude from Massachusetts. A bunch of Mainers drove right by.

Water is now sourced from all over western Maine for Poland Springs water. It does not all come from the same source, so it’s very possible it tastes different depending on the water source your bottle came from. There isn’t much that’s special about it, it’s basically the same water as what you can get from a well most anywhere in Maine.

Nestle sold Bluetriton to One Rock Capital Partners in 2021

Having people spread out so much results in a lot of administrative overhead (lots of small town governments, lots of school administration, lots of roads). We have a similar population to New Hampshire, but a lot more shit to pay for and maintain.

Recent supply price increases are due to natural gas supply constraints and demand induced natural gas price increases. Offsetting natural gas power in Massachusetts would help supply prices for the entire New England region.

I have solar too, but I still rely on the grid.

I run a large surplus in the summer and Versant by law is forced to give me a 1:1 credit. In the winter I run a big deficit and draw off that credit. Effectively I pay Versant very little (less than $7/month) to act as a long term battery for me.

Completely disconnecting from the grid and producing (and storing) 100% of my own electricity year round is not feasible for me, unless I ditch heat pumps and burn more fossil fuels for heat, and don’t switch to an electric car like I am planning.

My wife and I love Utah (except for the Mormon church). We’ve been discussing eventually downsizing our home in Maine and splitting our time between the Moab area and Maine.

🤷🏼‍♂️Not sure what more you expect given the circumstances. It’s not like they can have an infinite supply of line workers just sitting around waiting for the storm to hit so they can restore everyone’s power within an hour.

Mostly what you’ll find around Bangor are old logging roads. The longer it’s been since the area was actively logged, the rougher they’ll be. Not really anything around like the 4x4 trails they have on federal land out west, or f-roads in Iceland.

It would be cool to have a multi-day overlanding route with designated campsites (something pretty rough, that actually requires high clearance and four wheel drive and maybe fording water)

Just got my power back. Was without Friday 8:30AM until Monday 3:30PM. I think it’s the longest outage I’ve had here, although I had a similar one 5-6 years ago.

Would definitely recommend purchasing a helmet and good snowboarding specific gloves. Rent your board and boots until you’re sure you’ll stick with it.

The new gear is great. I snowboarded in the 90s and dropped off in college. Started back up 8 years ago using my same 90s era Burton LL Bean edition A-deck then after a couple years upgraded to a Burton Flight Attendant and it was a HUGE improvement.

Some mountains occasionally host demo days with Burton or other makers. Take an opportunity to try different types or rental and demo gear, and get advice from your instructors before you make a decision on buying your own gear.

Versant had crews working Christmas Day around here. Don’t think that is “business hours”.

There are multiple trees hung on the power lines, and multiple completely downed lines within a mile of my house. Multiply that for every neighborhood in their territory.

TIL there is a CMP section of Hancock county — I always assumed we were all in Versant territory

I’ve been without power since 8:30AM Friday.

Fiber optic internet is still up though, and I still have enough propane to run the generator for a few more days.

I’ve been turning my generator off when I go to bed to conserve propane. I heated my living room up to 74 before I shut it off last night and it was around 60 this morning.

Lots of moose. No joke, one December a few years ago I was driving to Quebec City and was approaching Jackman at dusk — I saw at like 8 or 9 moose that night, which is an all time high for me. I went to Quebec a few weeks ago but got to the city before dark and didn’t see a single moose that time.

Might not be a bad spot if you like to snowmobile, ATV hunt, and fish— but you can easily do that in Calais and Houlton.

All three are remote but Jackman is a whole other level. Very small town, not near anything. It’s even a few miles from the border — and there is nothing on the Canadian side of the border either. Calais is an actual border town with a larger Canadian town just across the river. Houlton is pretty remote but has a population of around 6000 compared to Jackman’s population of less than 1000, so it has more amenities. By far the biggest plus for Jackman is it’s the closest to Quebec City, which is great.

At least Calais and Houlton have Walmarts and Hannafords.

Jackman has a tiny grocery store that smells funny. I stopped there on the way home from Canada and grabbed a pack of baby carrots to snack on. Drove a mile down the road and realized they were moldy.

How much have you spent on solar?

https://www.mainepublic.org/environment-and-outdoors/2022-07-19/big-batteries-are-quickly-becoming-part-of-maines-electric-grid?_amp=true

What Massachusetts is building for storage is a drop in the bucket compared to what is needed, and they’re spending billions on green energy. There are challenges to increasing grid scale storefronts

I already spent $27,000 on solar and I’ll looking at battery storage and have a reservation for an 85k EV, so I don’t think you need to worry about me “crying poor”.

Obviously Maine needs to spend money on storage but you said “it’s not difficult”, which means you’re grossly oversimplifying it.

It’s expensive. People are bitching about their CMP bill now, wait till it goes up a few hundred bucks a month to build out all the infrastructure to support this.