Pamela Gunter began her well-prepared summer vacation by slipping down a steep granite incline in Acadia National Park and breaking her ankle — resulting in a rescue off Dorr Mountain, emergency surgery and an overnight stay at Mount Desert Island Hospital.
Gunter isn’t alone.
While many hikers depart Acadia National Park with memories of the iconic sunset from Cadillac Mountain summit or the daring scramble up Beehive trail, a handful also leave with an island injury known as “Acadia ankle.”
“Everyone be careful out there — there were 3 broken ankles while I was at the ER and apparently it is so common it is called the Acadia ankle,” Gunter wrote in a Facebook post about the incident.
MDI Search and Rescue, a volunteer group that assists Acadia park rangers with missing or injured visitors, completed 93 missions between March 2017 and September 2023, according to the group’s most recently available mission log. Over those roughly six years, more than half of the rescues — 48 missions — involved rescuing a hiker with an ankle injury.
The National Park Service, which no longer has a dedicated spokesperson for Acadia, did not respond to a request for comment sent to the park’s designated media inquiry email account.
Gunter, who was visiting with her family from North Carolina, said she slipped on June 24 near the Sieur de Monts Nature Center on Kurt Diederich’s Climb, a memorial trail on the east side of Dorr Mountain that was named after a 26-year-old Bar Harbor summer resident who died from anesthesia complications in 1913.
Gunter said she hadn’t seen any signs warning of the path’s steep ascent — or had missed them if they were there. She was later carried down the trail by about 20 rescuers, who she described as “absolutely phenomenal,” in a specialized rescue stretcher, and subsequently treated at MDI Hospital.
“I had surgery that afternoon to place a plate and screw and reset my ankle,” Gunter said in a written statement to the Bangor Daily News. “Every nurse mentioned ‘Acadia ankle.’ They also talked about how that day there seemed to be an abnormally high volume of falls, and that the season for Acadia injuries seemed to be starting early. The doctor talked about how many of these surgeries he sees a year. I was discharged the next morning.”
Gunter said she was told another hiker had fallen on Cadillac Mountain during her rescue. She praised Acadia Inn, the Bar Harbor hotel where her family has been staying, and the hospital for helping her navigate the injury by connecting her with knee scooter and wheelchair rentals for the remainder of her stay in Maine. But she wondered if the park could have provided clearer signage about the trail’s slippery conditions, which she compared to black ice.
“Always be careful but not scared: this was an accident — I had hiking shoes on, we were being slow and careful, we stayed on the trail — it could happen to anyone, even an experienced hiker,” Gunter said. “Perhaps the National Park should consider an extra warning on the rock-faced trails about how slick and dangerous this can be. If it is so common I do wish there was more information about it.”
The post describing her fall attracted more than a hundred Facebook comments, several of which were from hikers who had also sustained an ankle fracture at the park. One commenter welcomed Gunter to the “Acadia broken ankle club,” noting she had been a member since June 2024.
Beverly Smith, 56, of Winterport, joined the fractured ankle club in mid-April after successfully summiting the Beehive. On her way off the mountain, along a stretch of rocky path covered in roots, Smith broke her ankle, requiring emergency care at MDI Hospital. Smith’s ankle hasn’t fully recovered since the injury, though she said she’s hoping to soon trek the last 100 kilometers of the historic Camino de Santiago in Spain.
“Usually when I hike the Beehive, I start on the Bowl trail and go up the front of the Beehive,” Smith said, noting she had changed her route that day. “I did a bunch of hiking before coming off the Beehive and my legs were tired — luckily I was close to the road and I walked to the car.”
Smith was able to self-evacuate — unlike most of the ankle fractures that require MDI SAR’s assistance. Of the group’s 48 ankle-related missions, many of which involved slippery conditions, all but five hikers were carried out by litter.
Jean Cole, a Northport resident who was walking along Jesup Path on Wednesday morning and has been visiting Acadia for several years with her husband, was surprised to learn of “Acadia ankle,” given the park’s well-maintained trail system. She wondered if it may be age-related.
Pamela and Bruce Shope, who were also strolling along Jesup Path on Wednesday, said they stay on the park’s easier trails and overlooks to prevent injury because of their older age.
Women accounted for nearly 80% of ankle injuries logged by the volunteer group. The median age of rescuees was 52.
The volunteer rescue team assisted with ankle injuries in 18 distinct areas of the park between 2017 and 2023. The most common rescue locations were the Beehive and Bowl trails, where at least nine people have injured their ankles and required a carryout over those six years, according to the group’s mission logs.
Another seven people were rescued after ankle injuries on Cadillac Mountain — the park’s highest summit — amounting to the second most frequent rescue site.
Mariah Cormier, a public affairs officer for MDI Hospital, said the emergency department doesn’t have a formal system to track which trails are most common among injured hikers. However, Cormier said the hospital sees about three times as many patients during the summer months compared to the off-season, and a significant bump in ankle, wrist and bike-related injuries during those months.
Like Acadia’s ankle malady, other national parks also have their own specific injuries and illnesses that are common. At the Grand Canyon National Park, officials for years have warned of heat-related illnesses that befall many visitors.
In a study published by the Wilderness Medical Society on EMS reports at The Grand Canyon between 2004 and 2009, about 9% of incidents involved heat-related illnesses like dehydration and heat exhaustion, according to the study. The park reported six fatal heat-related incidents during those years.