Dad and I wanted to test our new shoes so we planned a route that would allow us to bike about 8 miles and hike about 2 miles - over rocks (of course it's over rocks, pretty much every hike in Acadia involves a degree of rock scrambling.)
We started at the Bubble Pond parking area, which is quite small! We got the last parking spot! We headed down past Bubble Pond toward the stables and then around to Jordan Pond House where we picked up the Around The Mountain Carriage Road and rode it up to the Deer Brook Bridge.
At the Deer Brook Bridge we locked the bikes and helmets to trees and headed out on foot to the summit of South Bubble. When we got off the bikes we were at what I thought was the middle of a long uphill and the first few steps going down the rock stairs were tough because my legs were in "pedal hard up the mountain" mode! But once they got used to the rocks it was an easy descent to the the Jordan Pond Nature trail and then around to the Bubbles Divide Trail.
That was where the fun began! The Bubbles Divide Trail went steadily up. It wasn't long until we got to the rocks. It wasn't hard climbing, but it was all climbing and stepping over rocks! The good news was that our shoes were amazing! They griped the rock so well, I never once worried about my foot slipping! Soon we we reached the turn off to go up to the summit and .2 of a mile later we were there!
Looking toward Eagle Lake and Frenchmen's Bay
After a snack on the summit we began the descent, which was down an exposed rock climb with excellent views of Jordan Pond and the Atlantic Ocean
It was a rougher descent the climb had been but we had great views the whole way, and because we were going down we got see them all! Soon we were back at the Jordan Pond Nature Trail headed back to the Deer Brook Trail and back to our bikes!
When we left our bikes we'd been huffing and puffing up the hill and I expected that we still had a distance to climb so I was pleasantly surprised when the trail leveled off, even went down hill soon after we got back on our bikes! It was only about 3 miles back to our car at Bubble Pond and it was mostly downhill!
We came back to the campground for lunch and then got ready to head into Ellsworth to run some errands. Before we went to Ellsworth however, we stopped for ice cream! I got the "baby" size in the soft serve (they don't have "baby" size in the scoop ice cream and the small is a serious amount of ice cream) and it was pretty good, but still a lot of ice cream!
In Ellsworth we made several stops to get stuff we needed. One stop was at Walgreens where they had a lobster tank with fresh, live lobsters in it! Not something you see anyplace else! We also hit the LLBean a Outlet where I got a few things, mostly some extra socks. One, they were smart wool socks for nearly half price and I hadn't planned on wearing hiking socks much since I knew my old Merrells were pretty worn out so I hadn't brought many pairs. Now that I have new trail shoes I needed more socks!
After our errands we went back to Sweet Peas Farm Cafe for dinner! It was late, but they were busy! There was a party of 31 out on the patio! It took awhile to get our food, but the food was delicious! They still had the beet salad and the panne cotta! This time I got the eggplant pita and it was awesome!
Posted with Blogsy
No comments:
Post a Comment