This column, published in the newsletter of the company where I used to work, was adapted from an essay in which I attempted to describe something that I feel could never be adequately described – 

Cadillac Mountain Sunrise

When you read this, I will be in Bar Harbor, Maine, at Acadia National Park, walking a mountain trail, perhaps one I haven't explored before; feeding sea gulls at Schoodic Point, where the waves create white fountains as they crash into the rocks; sitting outside our rented cottage, observing the lobster men as they check their traps in Salisbury Cove; or standing on a moun­tain­top, watching the sunset or sunrise. 

Acadia is a place for rest and renewal.  Even at the height of the season, one can be alone in the woods, on a mountaintop, beside the ocean, or on the banks of a tranquil pond or lake.  But the sunsets and the sunrises are what I remember most vividly. 

One sunrise in particular is indelibly impressed upon my memory.  It was, in fact, the first I witnessed from the top of Cadillac Mountain, Acadia's highest peak and the first place on the East Coast of the United States that the sun touches each day. 

Jarred awake by the alarm clock at about 4 a.m. that day, we (my wife, daughter, and I) were greeted by a dismal, drizzly predawn.  We downed strong coffee and ques­tioned the sanity of being up at this hour, especially when our projected plans to greet the sun from the mountaintop seemed doomed to failure by the overcast weather. 

But we were committed.  We drove through the park in a dense mist.  Even as we ascended the moun­tain road, we were enveloped in a grey gloom.  At the over­looks that normally commanded impressive views of the ocean, lakes and forest, and other mountains, we could see nothing. 

When we reached the parking lot at the top, howev­er, the mist had vanished.  We walked up to the large, flat area that is the summit of Cadillac Mountain, from which, just the day before, we had looked down on the village of Bar Harbor and out to the ocean, dotted with numerous islands.  We could see none of this.  It was as if, during the night, the sea had turned to cotton and had risen to surround the mountain.  Al­though Cadillac's summit is only 1,530 feet above sea level, we were above the clouds. 

I was so taken aback by the view that I forgot for a moment to be cold.  And it was cold.  Although the temperature at sea level was perhaps sixty degrees, typical for a June morning on the coast of Maine, it was about thirty-five or forty where we were.  The wind whipped across the mountaintop, making it seem even colder.  For a few minutes, we tried to shout comments to one another, but the wind carried our words away, and we soon gave up. 

It was just as well.  We didn't have anything impor­tant to say, and I, for one, was overtaken by a sense that this was a time to be alone.  I became somehow aware that what I was about to see, though it happened every day across the Earth, was to be something very special to me. 

I found shelter from the chilly wind in a small outcrop­ping of boulders and huddled there, facing in what I hoped was an easterly direction.  As I watched, some of the clouds on the horizon began, slowly and subtly, to take on a pink tint.  Gradually the pool of color spread and deepened – a mixture of pink and yellow, then light red and gold.  For several minutes, the clouds were painted with an ever-changing palette of colors.  Then, although the sun had not yet emerged, its rays shot up from the clouds in streaks of light against the still half-grey sky. 

This multicolored display encompassed my entire field of vision.  Beyond the mountain was the expanse of ever-lightening clouds and, beyond that, the sun's slow-motion kaleidoscope.  As the rays became more distinct and as the colors shifted to more vivid reds and golds, I felt the urge to stand.  To be seated in the presence of such glory seemed somehow inappropriate. 

When the upper arc of the sun emerged and the first direct rays struck the mountaintop, the clouds began to disperse.  Soon great openings began to appear, and I could see the ocean, the light of morning sweeping across its surface.  Below, the cloud curtain drew back to uncover the town, its lights twinkling as people arose to greet the dawn – a dawn that I had witnessed at some level that I will never understand and that I don't need to understand. The wind was still brisk and the air chilly, but my spirit was filled with warmth. 

I turned to go.  I walked across the rocky summit to meet my family and glanced once over my shoulder at the sun, which was now well above the horizon.  It was just an ordinary sun now – a simple ball of life-giving fire, its spectacle played out, at least at this place and this time.  A few degrees further west, it was repeating the perfor­mance, as it had done for millennia and would continue to do for eons to come. 

From that dawn onward, I have held a deep sense of wonder at the magnificence of the world we inhabit.  Unfortunately, in the course of daily life, I often lose this sense of oneness with the universe.  But it's always there.  When I remember sunrise in Acadia, it's always there.

The photographs were taken during the sunrise described in this essay

Rich Turner