Acadia's In-Between Weeks: The Loop Road Is Still Open, and the Summer Systems Are Gone

The Cadillac Summit Road vehicle reservation season ended on Sunday, October 25. For the summer, the National Park Service ran the $6 timed reservation from May 20 through October 25, 2026, separate from the park entrance pass. The Park Loop Road, and the summit road that branches off it, stays open to cars until December 1. Until then, you can drive Cadillac without booking a time slot.

The visitor operation is what's closing this fall. The bus, the campgrounds and the popover service are already done, and the last park shops close in the days around November 1. The road network that carried all that traffic hasn't closed yet. Between now and December 1, it closes in steps, and the dates are known.

What Has Already Shut Down

Most of Acadia's summer services ended weeks before the roads close. The Island Explorer ended fall service on October 12. So the Loop Road will be open to cars for seven weeks with no fare-free bus on it. Here is how the rest of the closings run, from the park's own operating hours and seasons calendar:

Jordan Pond House has two different end dates. The park calendar lists the restaurant as closing October 26. The operator's own site gives October 23 as the restaurant's last day of service and October 25 as the last day for the Popover & Prosecco Bar. Either way, popovers are done for 2026.

A few things in the park have no closing date. The Fabbri, Seawall and Frazer Point picnic areas, Sand Beach and the Schoodic Loop and Point Road are all listed as open year-round.

The Three Steps Down to Winter

The rest of this season comes down to three dates. Each one takes away a specific piece of access.

1. November 1: Hulls Cove Visitor Center closes until April 30. Visitor information moves to the Bar Harbor Chamber of Commerce at 2 Cottage Street, at the corner of Cottage and Main. The entrance station where the Park Loop Road meets Schooner Head Road stays open all year and sells every type of entrance pass. An automated fee machine in a pavilion in the Hulls Cove parking lot sells weekly passes by credit card 24 hours a day.
2. November 15: Unpaved park roads close. The park calendar runs its unpaved roads from May 15 to November 15.
3. December 1: The Park Loop Road, including Cadillac Mountain, closes to vehicles until April 14. The Thompson Island Picnic Area and Echo Lake Beach close the same day.

The visitor center closing doesn't change the pass rule. The park's winter visiting page requires an entrance pass year-round for everyone 16 and older, displayed so it can be seen through the windshield. If you're renewing, the federal America the Beautiful annual pass went to $80 for U.S. residents on January 1, 2026, according to the Department of the Interior. Acadia's fee page also lists an extra $100 charge for non-U.S. residents 16 and older who come in without an Annual or America the Beautiful pass. That's worth knowing if you have guests coming from abroad over the holidays.

Trails Closed Right Now

The road is open, but some of the most-used routes on the island are not. As of late October, the park's current conditions page lists three repair closures:

• Beech Mountain Loop Trail, eastern section. Closed since September 21, from a junction just past the parking lot to just below the fire tower at the summit. The outer loop of the Beech Mountain Loop Trail, the Beech South Ridge Trail and the Beech West Ridge Trail all still reach the summit.
• Ocean Path, southern section. Closed since August 31, from the trailhead across from the Otter Point parking lot to the trail's southern end.
• Schoodic Mountain Road. Closed since August 31 from Schoodic Loop Road to the summit of Schoodic Head, with heavy equipment working on resurfacing, regrading and ditching.

The Ocean Path closure has a winter consequence. The park's winter hiking guidance names Ocean Path, along with Ship Harbor and the carriage roads, as a better choice than steeper routes once trails ice over. Until the southern section reopens, the open stretch is shorter. These closures are posted as alerts and can change week to week, so check the current conditions page before you head out.

The Carriage Roads Get Raked Before They Get Groomed

These weeks also have their own work. When the paved roads empty out, the carriage roads get ready for snow, and a lot of that work is done by people who live here.

Friends of Acadia and Acadia National Park hold the 34th annual Take Pride in Acadia Day on Saturday, November 7. Volunteers spread out along the carriage roads to rake leaves and clear drainage features before winter. Friends of Acadia explains why the work matters. Fallen leaves clog ditches, culverts and other drainage built to move rain and snowmelt off the roads. When those channels block, water runs across the road surface instead, eroding the finely graded material and contributing to washouts. The day starts at 8:30 a.m. After you register, you're assigned a carriage road meeting spot, and lunch is at Hulls Cove Visitor Center at noon. The registration deadline is Friday, October 30, the day after this post goes up. You can register through Friends of Acadia.

For anyone who can't commit to a Saturday, Friends of Acadia's last drop-in stewardship morning of the season, Trick or Trails, runs Thursday, October 29, from 8:15 a.m. to 12:15 p.m., weather permitting. It meets at the Hulls Cove Storage Facility by the Visitor Center, and no registration is needed. The park's two-hour Wetland Revival walk, "Walking the Path of Restoration," has one more date, Friday, October 30, at 11 a.m. outside the Sieur de Monts Nature Center.

The raking sets up the next stage. Once there's enough snow, volunteers with the Acadia Winter Trails Association set classic and skate ski tracks on the carriage roads. The association's published standard is at least five days of freezing temperatures plus more than six inches of new snow, and the groomers work out of the Hulls Cove Visitor Center and the Brown Mountain Gatehouse. Grooming reports are posted on the Ski Acadia page. For now, the latest posts there are from last winter's season. Carriage roads that drain well in November make a better base for grooming in January.

Across Frenchman Bay, Schoodic Institute runs Sea Watch Saturdays at Schoodic Point on Arey Cove Road in Winter Harbor on October 31, November 7 and November 14, from 1 to 3 p.m., with no registration. The institute also welcomes drop-in help counting migrating birds from sunrise to 9:30 a.m., Saturday through Wednesday, weather permitting, through mid-December. Since the Schoodic Loop is open year-round, that drive isn't affected by the December 1 closure.

What the Park Looks Like After the Gates Close

From December 1 through April 14, weather permitting, cars can use only two plowed sections of the Park Loop Road.

• Ocean Drive, from the Schooner Head Road intersection to Otter Cliff Road. It runs one way for about two miles along the shore past Sand Beach and Thunder Hole to Otter Cliff, and all traffic exits at Otter Cliff Road. The Fabbri Picnic Area entrance, with a restroom kept open all winter, is about a tenth of a mile in on the left.
• Jordan Pond Road from Seal Harbor, which joins a short section of the Park Loop Road plowed to the south end of Jordan Pond. You leave the way you came in.

Everything else on the Loop Road becomes a designated snowmobile route. Under the rules on the park's winter page, snowmobiles are allowed on the 27-mile Park Loop Road system, including the road up Cadillac, and on most fire roads. They are kept off the carriage roads, with one exception: the east side of Eagle Lake, which connects to the Park Loop Road at Bubble Road. Snowmobiles need Maine registration, and the speed limit is 35 mph on the Loop Road. The park suggests parking at the Hulls Cove Visitor Center lot to reach the winter routes. Skiers can also use the unplowed park roads, but the park warns that those roads are shared with snowmobiles. Park roads are plowed and sanded only during daylight hours.

Seven public restrooms are kept open across the park through the winter: Brown Mountain, the Eagle Lake boat launch, the Eagle Lake carriage road, Fabbri Picnic Area, Jordan Pond, the Parkman Mountain Trailhead and Sand Beach.

Next summer's bus schedule is already set. The Island Explorer's 2027 driver letter runs summer service from June 23 through August 22 and fall service from August 23 through October 11, 2027. For what's happening in town while the park shuts down, see our date-by-date guide to Bar Harbor's off-season. Our Mount Desert Island page covers the island town by town.

Steve Shelton is a lifelong Bar Harbor local. If you'd like to hear how the island's off-season works from people who live it all year, Acadia Realty Team is always happy to talk. Let's Connect.