Lynn Amber - Travel & Photography
sharing my thoughts through words and images
Tuesday Treks: Acadia Carriage Roads
My Tuesday Trek was true to it’s name – I took a ride on my Trek!! 🙂 I decided it was time to get the bike on the trail this summer and planned a route on the carriage roads today. My route took me all the way across the park and back again via several different carriage road loops.
I hooked up with the carriage road network at the #17 junction off the Park Loop Road after traveling a couple of miles on paved roads. I rode toward Bubble Pond and continued on to Eagle Lake – traveling on the east side of the lake and picked up the Aunt Betty Pond loop at the #9 junction. I had not traveled on this section of the carriage roads last year so it was my top choice today to visit. What a beautiful ride on moderate terrain – although it seemed like more uphills than down! 🙂 Aunt Betty Pond is a remote area of the park ( although not far as the crow flies from Route 233) and this section was not heavily traveled. I was particularly interested in seeing the Seven Sisters Bridges area of this loop. A camper had mentioned this section of the carriage to me road last year – and I wanted to see those bridges!
After leaving Aunt Betty Pond, the road climbs steadily to the Seven Sisters Bridges. Basically, the carriage road crosses a small stream multiple times on this ascent via these wooden bridges. It is a very pretty part of the carriage road system. I highly recommend biking this loop!
After crossing all seven bridges, there is a junction that is a tad confusing. I say this only because it is where I made my only wrong turn of the day!! The junction said #10N and I thought I was turning in the right direction but when I reached the Chasm Brook Bridge (an uphill climb, I might add) I realized that I had made the wrong decision. I wanted to go on the Around Mountain Carriage Road along the west side of Jordan Pond and eventually return to the #17 junction. I should have turned left 😦 Oh well, got a little extra work-out!
I continued to the #16 junction from #10 and crossed the Park Loop Road towards #17 marker. At this point, I headed right onto the Day Mountain Loop so I could connect with a hiking trail that would take me down to Route 3 and back home. I had not traveled on the Day Mountain Loop before, and after a very short downhill (I was thanking my lucky stars!) found myself climbing once again! My legs were now starting to really scream at me! At Junction #36, I picked up the Day Mountain hiking trail and walked my bike the .3 mile out to the paved road. This proved more difficult than I had originally estimated. There is a section of single-way log boardwalk on this part of the trail and I had to carry my bike and balance walking on this narrow log boardwalk. Normally, no big deal. But, my extremely fatigued legs were not happy with me and the mosquitoes were taking advantage of my slow pace!
I did manage to make it to Route 3 without any mishaps on the foot path and rode the distance back home on the paved road. When I totaled up the distance I had traveled today via bike, it came to just over 19 miles. Good grief! For my first extended bike ride of the season, I had probably gone a bit too far – but it was worth it! Several hours later, my legs have recovered and the blood-thirsty mosquitoes are a distant memory. Tomorrow, however, I think I’m going to do an automobile road trip!! 😉
Lynn Amber - Travel & Photography 