Acadia - Carriage Trail Rides
Pancakes: Blueberry of Course - I’m in Maine
It’s been four years since I’ve been in Acadia. The last visit I rode Cadillac mountain on my rode bike and I wanted to ride some of the Carriage trails. I only had a road bike with me so it was too difficult to ride on gravel trails. I have a mountain bike with me this trip. It has been an interesting day.
I decided to make pancakes for breakfast to get me ready for the ride.
I set out to ride a few moderate routes that AllTrails described. I stopped at the KOA office and asked if they had a trail map, they did not. The woman at the front desk was a cyclist and suggested that I do the Eagle Lake loop. She said it was easy and had the best scenery.
Eagle Lake Loop
I found parking on the road about a half mile from the Eagle Lake entrance. Note, there is no parking fee and no registration required here. There is a new requirement for a Cadillac Mountain parking pass and various other parking lots require special car registrations.
Other parking lots, deeper into the park require you to have a registration, available online through Bar Harbor and Acadia National Park. This requires advance planning.
I took the Eagle carriage trail up the hill to get the difficult part out of the way. There are beautiful views all along the route. I stopped many times to take photos, sit on rocks and take in the views and even smell the mushrooms. Photos follow:
Eagle Lake: Gravel Trail View
Eagle Lake: View from a rock
Eagle Lake: Near the end of the loop
I stopped to photograph a huge mushroom that I saw. I jumped over a small gully to get a photo from the other side. People stopped thinking there was something wrong with me. After taking the photo, I noticed I was surrounded by mushrooms. I took a deep breath and could smell mushrooms. It was such a fresh, moist earthy smell. I wasn’t sure if this was a problem sitting there smelling the mushrooms.
Eagle Lake: Smelling the mushrooms
Destination Unknown
I went to AllTrails thinking I would ride two other routes. I hadn’t yet realized that all the carriage trails are fully connected. The entire network of trails is about 45 miles long. The first location was along a lake on private property many miles from the park. There was a no trespassing sign at the entrance. Clearly the directions were incorrect. I looked up the next route on the list.
This time I was sent to a private residents. I pulled into the driveway of a large mansion sitting on the lake. I turned around in the driveway and saw a man come out of the carriage house. I asked him if there was a bike trail near here and he laughed and said, “There’s no bike path here, about 50 cyclist have come here this summer.” I told him I was sorry and said you have a beautiful house. He told me it wasn’t his house, that he comes by at least once a day just to check on the house. He was a retired policeman and checked properties in the area as a living. I told him I’d like watch a house like that for six months. He agreed and said this property was vacant except in the summer. He invited me to walk around the property. It was an absolutely gorgeous house.
I took 15-20 minutes and just sat on the bench in the garden. There were so many scents floating around. It was absolutely quiet, the perfect place to reflect and relax.
Back To The Carriage Trails
I tried to take some other routes into the park and realized I couldn’t park anywhere in the park because I didn’t have one of the special parking passes. I went back to Rt 3. and parked on the road to the entrance of Eagle Lake. I then tried to ride all the remaining trails. Of the 45 miles of carriage trails, I was able to ride 41.
Along the lower side of Eagle Lake, there were two woman with a baby and one was photographing a mushroom. I stopped and told them about a very large mushroom (see photo above) which was about .5 miles away. I told them I had a granddaughter that was 9 months old.
I continued on towards the Jordon Pond carriage path. I stopped to take yet another photo of a lake and two cyclist came by and asked if I was OK. A few minutes later they were stopped and asked if I would take a photo of them. Of course I told them, I do this everyday. Their names were Peter and Tracy from Plymouth, RI. I asked if I could join them and rode up over the mountain with them. They were both strong cyclist with new gravel bikes. I took most of what I had to stay with them at times. They were really fun to ride with.
Back At The Campsite
I got back to the campground and checked in with my Michigan neighbors. I was still cooling down from the ride and wasn’t yet ready to eat. For dinner, I had a tofu scramble burrito and a large salad.
I do laundry when I have a chance and when I start running out of cloths. I thought this is a perfect opportunity. Many others had the same thought. All the washing machine were occupied. Two were not functioning. This is a huge campsite and they clearly don’t have enough washing machines. There was a line of people forming behind me. The frustration people were feeling was evident. There were people from five different countries. In the end we all got our laundry done and we all were laughing about various things that kept going wrong.
The air was warm compared to more recent nights.The three of them were all leaving very early in the morning. My neighbors were asleep early. I woke in the middle of the night and popped out of the tent. The sky was partly cloudy and you could see the lighthouse beacon passing over.