Day 5--Acadia National Park--Carriage Roads with Lots of Bridges to See

Sparky's apologizes for the break in info about Acadia and riding the carriage roads. Sparky took a week's break from picking out her favorite Acadia photos and blogging about the carriage roads to go on a road trip with her daughter's car back to Virginia, and to welcome her daughter home from a long stay in Kuwait. She's BA-A-A-C-K! (Both of them...explains E.)

A little aside about Acadia National Park...It preserves parts or all of 15 islands in addition to Mount Desert Island.  It's about 35,000 acres with 41 miles of coastline, has the only fjord in the eastern U.S., AND the highest point on the Atlantic coast of North and South America. (Cadillac Mountain).

Sparky LOVES the Rockefeller bridges. There are 16 of them that are within the carriage road system and more outside the carriage roads. Each bridge is unique, and what a lot of people don't know, if you don't get off your bike, or head down the paths that you can barely see at the sides of the bridges, you will miss a whole other world. There are trails that criss cross the carriage roads, go under the bridges and beautiful falls and streams and other surprises await, like this little wooden bridge on a trail a ways back from one of the bridges.

This is Sparky's favorite bridge, the Amphitheater Bridge.

Here's an example of what you might see if you traverse down a bridge's side and look for trails underneath.

This photo below was taken underneath and to the side of the Waterfall Bridge....

One of the coolest things about Acadia and Rockefeller's vision, are the fact that the trails and paths that lead you to Mother Nature's beauty are so well blended into the landscape, although they are man made trails, that you can't even tell they are there.....This looks like an impossible walk through, but it's really quite easy because the stone and rocks have been deliberately placed so you can step from one rock to the next, and not jam your ankle in a crack somewhere, as long as you are stepping carefully!

See the blue blaze on the trail? (it's on the tree in the center) This really is a trail!

Sparky's ride today was on the other side of Acadia, near Northeast Harbor. She wanted to see FIVE bridges. This was going to be a longer ride. Eldy dropped Sparky off at the parking lot to the side of where the Brown Mountain Gate Lodge is located, on 198 on Mount Desert Island.

We had rented a nice little bike rack from the Bar Harbor Bike Shop on Cottage Street to transport the bike rental over to that side. Sparky was going to ride the Upper and Lower Hadlock Pond loop and the Long Pond loop-- on the bike map highlighted in blue--rated DIFFICULT. Where you see stars, are the bridges. The hard part is identifying the bridges two weeks AFTER you saw them, and trying to match up the stars with the names of the bridges on the Acadia park map with this bike map. (There are no signs at the bridges). The numbers on this map are the signpost numbers.

Here's the park literature map WITH the bridge names (off to the side,  not pictured) and numbers which have nothing to do with the bike shop map numbers! See how Sparky is confused? :-) (Doesn't take much to do THAT! laughs E.)

Did Sparky get lost again on the carriage roads? Yep, briefly. You see, many of the carriage rides are loops. So when you get to a signpost, which is numbered, and which is on the bike map, sometimes it will say go either way to get to a certain point, because it's a loop. Sparky's problem is, she's spatially challenged BIG time, and she doesn't know which way is east- west- north or south on a cloudy day (or any day! laughs E, AGAIN). So she briefly went a wrong way on one of the loop routes, then asked some other bikers which way she was supposed to be going, and they straightened her out.

Sparky thinks she did over 20 miles today....She started the "Map My Ride" bike app, but it ran down the phone battery so fast, she turned it off. And if it wasn't 20 miles, it certainly was a stupendous workout with all the hills. She needs a portable odometer! It was a really fabulous ride today.....

Hadley Brook Bridge

Next up, a whale watching tour with quite the story! See you later......

Biking Jordan Pond to Ampitheater Bridge

Bar Harbor, ME    High:  77   Low:  58

Sparky is getting better at navigating carriage roads and not getting lost! Woo-hoo! Today she biked the Amphitheater valley that was carved out by glaciers. The carriage road that runs from Jordan Pond to the Amphitheater Bridge has THREE beautiful bridges. It's a trip out and back of about 4.8 miles, with some significant climbing, to an elevation of about 580 feet, a great workout for Sparky!

This time she had her map, her supplementary directions, and having been out this direction before, remembered (thank heaven for small miracles, offers E.) how to get back!

You start at the south end of Jordan Pond. Cross over the Jordan Dam Pond Bridge and follow the carriage road for .1 of a mile. Take a LEFT at intersection 14, and the road climbs and climbs.  In about  a half mile, the road turns sharply to the left, and TADA! The first bridge on this stretch of road. This is the West Branch Bridge.

It has a very narrow, six foot wide arch and is modeled after a bridge in Central Park. Several of Rockefeller's bridges are modeled after some of his favorite ones from New York's Central Park. Not long after crossing West Branch Bridge, there is yet another bridge that is awesome! It's the Cliffside Bridge. The Cliffside Bridge is 230 feet long. The bridge looks like an English castle with the tower viewing sections.

There are viewing platforms and fancy chutes that drain water from the carriage roads. They sort of look like gun turrets.

Viewing tower on the Cliffside Bridge

Here's another shot from a different angle of the Cliffside Bridge. It is really high up and there is no easy trail path down to be able to see the bridge from down below. It's very massive, though! The view out across the landscape is spectacular!

One more bridge to see....Sparky continued onward to the next intersection, taking a RIGHT at signpost 21. As you come to the end of the Amphitheater valley, here comes the Amphitheater Bridge, the longest in the carriage road bridge system at 245 feet. It is WONDERFUL!

This bridge curves hugs the curve in the road to cross the Amphitheater valley. What makes this bridge so extra special is the Amphitheater Trail, like so many of the trails in the park, comes down beside the bridge, then follows the brook UNDER and THROUGH the bridge.







Here's what the trail looks like passing under the bridge.

Because it's been raining quite heavily off and on, there was a waterfall to be seen through the bridge tunnel. The waterfall is much heavier and faster in the spring, I would imagine.

A spectacular ride today...Sparky has seen quite a few of the bridges, there are just a few left to find. Not all of them are accessible on the public carriage roads, there are a couple that are off limits to bikes. But these that she has seen are just absolutely wonderful. The care with which they were designed to blend into their surroundings is a crowning Rockefeller achievement, that's for sure!