Daily visitation to Isle au Haut will be capped at 128 under a visitor use plan adopted by Acadia National Park/NPS

Visitors to Acadia National Park who want to escape the crowds might consider a trip to Isle au Haut, a relatively little-known piece of the park that occupies an island south of Mount Desert Island. Under a visitor use management plan adopted by the park, daily visitation to the island will be capped at 128, although the park will allow higher visitation on six days in July and August.

The numbers aren't much of a change from the capacity limit that has been enforced for the island since the late 1980s. That cap was 120 per day -- 90 day visitors and 30 overnight campers -- and since 2002 daily visitation has surpassed 128 just four times.

Other provisions of the plan call for monitoring visitor experiences through surveys every three years; establishing resource condition standards for trails and campsites and monitoring for them; retaining the primitive character of trails; reviewing campground layout and design to identify opportunities to enhance privacy and resource protection; continuing to maintain the park road, and; continuing a non-promotion policy for Isle au Haut with other park visitors unless they ask (so keep this story to yourself!).

Park officials also will review the island's human carrying capacity every five years to determine if more, or fewer, visitors should be allowed.

Isle au Haut (High Island) lies about 30 miles southwest of Bar Harbor, and seven miles south of Stonington, Maine. The island is about seven miles long and two miles wide, and the National Park Service manages about half of it (2,900 acres) as part of Acadia National Park. An island family donated these lands to the federal government to be managed by the NPS as part of Acadia in 1943. The other half of the island is privately owned and lies within the town of Isle au Haut. Visitors and island residents access the island from Stonington via a private, nonprofit passenger ferry service (no vehicles) that serves the town year-round and visitors in the park at Duck Harbor from June to September.

Isle au Haut annual visitation is currently lower than it has been in the past, with about 5,000 '“ 7,500 day use visitors and 500 '“ 600 campers, according to park statistics. This is down from a high of 8,844 day-use visitors in 1998. The number of campers is relatively consistent from year-to-year.