HIKE ME
Tide-Pooling
TREKS EXPLORE BEACH POOLS FILLED WITH MARINE LIFE STORY & PHOTOS BY AISLINN SARNACKI
IN A SHALLOW POOL of saltwater, periwinkles and dog whelks creep across rocks. Their spiral shells vary in color and size. Gray, green, brown, tan. Some are even bright orange with a touch of purple. Crouching at the edge of the tide pool, a young girl leans in for a closer look. She reaches a hand into the cool water, her fingertips brushing over rough barnacles that cling to rocks by the hundreds. “Be gentle with the plants and animals,” her mother had told her earlier that day, “and put everything back exactly where you found it.” Taking her mother’s words to heart, the girl carefully turns over a few small rocks, hoping to find creatures hiding underneath. A small sea star embraces one rock, its five maroon legs clinging to the rough granite. Startled, a green crab darts under a mass of seaweed.
The girl turns the rocks back over, then sits back and gazes into the pool. The longer she looks, the more she notices. On one rock, a group of tortoiseshell limpets slowly eat away at pink algae. Nearby, a hermit crab chases another. A scud scuttles by, then disappears under a cluster of blue mussels. Tide pools — pockets of saltwater in the intertidal zone, between the low and high tide mark — are brimming with life, from sea slugs to anemones. They’re great places to observe nature. In fact, exploring tide pools is so popular that the activity has its own name: tide-pooling. Common along the rocky coast of Maine, tide pools are delicate habitats that should be treated with care. Before tidepooling, check out guidelines on how to explore these habitats safely and responsibly provided by Acadia National Park at nps.gov/acad/planyourvisit/tidepooling.htm. The best time to visit tide pools is low tide because that’s when the greatest number of pools will be exposed. Here are a few places where you can hike to tide pools along the coast.
