It started out pretty early, as usual, but this time it was on bicycles instead of in the van. We got on the road outside our house and headed toward Loop Road, which is the main road in the park. We're not staying near an official road entrance, so we had to carry our bikes through an opening in the woods to the road. From there, we biked a couple miles to an a carriage road bridge. Again, we had to hop of the bikes and carry them to the carriage road.
The carriage roads are nice because there are no vehicles on them - only walkers, bikers, and horses.
We were on the carriage road for another mile or so before arrive at Jordan Pond and the Jordan Pond House. The House is famous for its popovers. We knew it could be busy by the time we returned from our hike and hoped to make a reservation, but they were already booked up. We'd just have to chance it after we came back from the trail.
Our trail for today was on the Spring Trail, which takes along and then eventually to the Penobscot Mountain. The trailhead was only a minute-walk from the Jordon Pond House. It started out wooded and took you over the Jordan Stream very early on.
As the hike progressed, we soon realized that this hike was more strenuous and difficult than our guidebook, which had been fantastic so far, led us to believe.
After crossing another carriage road, the incline of the trail increased sharply. The hike then became a hard scramble at times.
It took awhile, but the trail did eventually open up a little bit. It wasn't the summit, but it did make for a beautiful look out over Jordan Pond.
After taking in some of the scenery, we head back into the woods and come to a marker that sends up toward the Penobscot Mountain summit.
The hike to the summit was very reminiscent of the hike to the Cadillac Mountain summit with large flat granite bedrock that sloped upward toward the summit. The views from behind us meant that we had to take a break every so often to take it in.
That's Jordan Pond in the picture above. We could see it on our right the entire hike up.
We then made our way back down Penobscot Mountain, which took us back into some wooded trails that opened up occassionally to soak in a stunning scene.
Eventually we made our way back to the Jordan Pond House and only had to wait about 20 minutes to get seated. I was pretty exhausted at this point and didn't have the energy to even take a photo of the House or the view from our outdoor seating. As for the menu, we all ordered a blueberry lemonade and a popover, which is basically a fluffy muffin. They were good, and the food and drink gave us enough to walk the tenth of a mile down to Jordan Pond.
In that photo above, you can see Jordan Pond with the Bubbles (two small rounded mountains) in the background. The mountain to the right is Pemetic Mountain.
After stopping for a brief moment to look at the beauty of Jordan Pond and the surrounding mountain ranges, we headed back to our bikes. It was decision time. We could either catch a bus back to Bar Harbor and then back to our house, bike a little more and then catch a bus back to Bar Harbor and then back to our house, or we could attempt to bike ourselves back to our house.
After consulting the map and our GPS, we decided that it would be possible to bike back to our house. So, that's what we decided to do.
We eventually came to an amazing point on our bikes. It was good and bad that we were there. The good was that it was absolutely gorgeous to look at the Bubble Mountains in the background of Bubble Pond. The bad was that we weren't supposed to be there according to our path back home.
We had to consult the maps and GPS again, and we soon realized that we miscalculated our trip back. What we thought was a carriage road to get us home was actually a trail.
All this meant was that we'd have to continue on our way back toward Eagle Lake, catch the bicycle express bus into Bar Harbor, and then bus back to our place. It wasn't what we had planned, but it worked out just fine. We decided on a delicious afternoon snack at Mount Desert Island Ice Cream while we waited for our bus.
It was a longer day than we may have expected, and my butt is sore from all of the biking, but Cara made some fantastic lobster pizza yesterday evening for dinner. It turned out to be another wonderful day in Acadia.
Today is last full day in the park. We need to get to the main visitor center (for souvenirs, of course). We want to see the peregrine falcons on Precipice (not hiking it, thankfully). And we want to do another hike or two (Gorham Mountain and maybe the Bubbles). We've also thrown around the idea of visiting the Atlantic Brewing Company. It might be a lot to cram into one day, but it is our last one. We'll do the best we can!
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