When coastal geologist Joseph Kelley first visited Down East Maine in the early 1980s, local people told him that young brides could rarely count on inheriting their grandmothers’ fine china because dishware seldom survived a generation in the region’s weak but frequent earthquakes. In the years since, Kelley has learned that the line where the land meets the sea in Maine is an extremely fluid, even shaky, place to live.
 

There are not many places around the globe where climbers can practice their vertical gymnastics at the water’s edge. The pink granite cliffs of Otter Cliffs, in Acadia National Park, have got to be among the most user-friendly. Local guide Jeff Butterfield has been leading visitors to the edge (and over it, actually) of this sixty-foot-tall outcropping for twenty-four years. He’ll set a toprope that’s right for your physical and emotional level.