I Can Hear a Bullfrog Calling Me....Jessup Path Acadia

Bar Harbor, ME   High: 73  Low:  65

It was a drizzly foggy day, but we wanted to get out and get some exercise...The Jessup Path to Great Meadow Loop is a wonderful, easy hike, a "lollipop" type of trail...If you did the entire loop, it would be a 3.1 mile hike through woods, wetlands, and fields. The wetlands have a nice long boardwalk for that part of the walk, and part of the trail is gravel, making part of the hike wheelchair accessible.

Because we didn't have our maps with us today, we just weren't really sure where to hook up with the Great Meadow Trail to complete the loop. So we started at the Sieur de Mont trailhead, made a right, and first walked through a heavy, lush forest of grasses and birches. The boardwalk IS the Jessup Path and after it ends, it  runs into another trail that intersects it, Hemlock Road, then turns into a gravel based trail continuing to the Great Meadow Loop.

We continued on to where the trail ends briefly at the Park Loop Road. We didn't know that to continue the loop, you have to cross the Park Loop Road and pick up the Great Meadow Trail to continue on clockwise. Had we continued on the Great Meadow Loop, we would have seen the Kebo Valley Golf course, two cemeteries near brooks, and the outskirts of Bar Harbor.  The clouds of fog were rolling in, the mist was getting heavier.

We decided to turn back at the Park Loop Road junction. If you take this hike, you can see Champlain Mountain to the left, and Dorr Mountain to the right at this point. We traveled back to the Sieur de Mont parking lot, for a total distance of about a mile and a quarter. On the way back, Sparky stopped to take photos of a "bullfrog calling me" (some song has that refrain in it, doesn't it?) in the marsh.

This path has some historical background as George Dorr, the "father of Acadia", first created this path over 100 years ago as part of a garden path that connected to downtown Bar Harbor. This trail has been recently re-created as part of the Friends of Acadia and National Park Forest Service efforts to give residents and visitors the opportunity to walk between the towns, mountains, ponds and seas, just as they did hundreds of years ago. People didn't think anything of a walk that would be five to twenty miles a day back then. Sparky and Eldo have a LO-O-O-N-G way to go before they would think or be able to walk that many miles. Now, put Sparky on a hybrid bike, that would NOT be a problem! Some day we're gonna get ourselves in better shape. What a better place to do it, than Acadia. No excuses here, for not hiking and biking if you are physically able. So many choices, so little time left....Another reason to return again........