Acadia National Park, ME

Saturday Sept 12- Our plan today is to hike Acadia Mountain, which is about 670 feet, but what makes it different from the Beehive is that it isn’t straight up. We had in mind to go up the side of Acadia, down the other side and walk/stoll along Valley Gorge trail which follows Somes Sound Fjord. That’s supposed to be the best place around here to spot eagles, which I would definitely love to do! After that little break, we would cut over St. Sauveur Mtn and back down to the parking lot. Going up Acadia was great. Just enough challenge without tiring us too much. The woods and rocks here remind me so much of the area where I grew up. We used to pack up a lunch and rock climb near my house, where there were acres of woods and rocks. Intermingled with the boulders were blueberry bushes, and we would pick them when it was the right time of year. This area is very similar to that, with the same type of rocks and scrubby bushes…. So, up Acadia we go. The views at the top were incredible. I have a video, but don’t think I have the bandwith to upload it. We ate lunch when we got to the top. Once we went down the other side, our plan started to fall apart a little. Instead of a path to stroll along the fjord, the Valley Gorge trail was just as much work as it was going up Acadia. So much for our little break before climbing St. Sauveur. We did take our time, stopping frequently to scan for eagles. We never did see one, but I did get a picture of an Osprey. When we got home I googled to find out what an eagle sounds like so I will be able to recognize the call better next time. St. Sauveur is about 750 ft, so in all we ascended and descended about 1500 ft, about 5 miles ….doesn’t seem like much but we were tired- it took us about 5 hours in all. I think next time we will buy the detailed hiking trails map so we’ll have a better idea of the terrain. I was glad we went up Acadia, since the view at the top of St. Sauveur was nonexistent. It was tree covered, with no view at all. Sunday we spent regrouping- did some shopping and laundry and in general took it easy. Today we felt ready for another challenge, so we biked some of the carriage roads in the park. We noticed today that the colors on the trees seem to be changing daily. I would say that everything was pretty green when we got here, and now you can definitely see that some of the leaves have started to turn. It made for very pretty scenery while we rode. In all we biked about 12 miles- and since I haven’t been on a bike in about 15 years or more, I felt pretty good about it. We’ll see what we feel like tomorrow! We stopped to eat along the way, and stopped to chat with other bikers several times. There is a restaurant on the water called the Jordon Pond House. They are known for their popovers. Of course we had to stop in- Paul had the popover, I had a brownie sundae. He said the peach ice cream was some of the best he has ever had, I say the hot fudge was some of the best I have ever had. It was worth the calories, for sure. We dropped the bikes off in Bar Harbor and walked the shore a bit looking for sea glass, without much luck. There is an island right off the coast that you can walk to at low tide. Our plan is to do that tomorrow, if the weather holds.