Good morning! This week we're in Acadia National Park and there's a ton of biking and hiking trails! We're a little behind in our 500 mile challenge this year, so the focus for the week is going to be catching up on some of those miles.
When we were at the visitor's center earlier this week, the ranger suggested going to Jordan Pond. The pictures we've seen from there are beautiful. Doing our research, the parking lot fills up by 11am. There's a restaurant that opens nearby at 11am, so that makes sense. At 10am, we briefly joined the line of cars circling the parking lot hoping for someone to pull out. No thank you. This is not how I'm going to spend my morning, circling the parking lot, then joining a bunch of people on a crowded trail.
There's another hike we've been wanting to do and it starts near the visitor's center. That has a huge parking lot, so I was much more hopeful to find parking there. The kids are using their hiking poles for the first time.
Around Acadia are a whole bunch of these Carriage Trails for horses and carts. We figured if it's an easy enough grade for a horse, then we should have no problem with it.
Our trail starts at the very top here and takes us down to Witch's Hole Pond. From there, we've got a few options as many of these trails interconnect and lead you to different places.
Plus we're bringing over a gallon of water, lunch, and tons of snacks. Meet the mule!
Both Alli and Ian were full of energy, running ahead of us. The trails are nice and wide here, with a bed of gravel that's easy to walk on, but does kick up into your shoes.
There's the Witch's Hole!
It's beautiful here. Blue skies and the trees are starting to change colors along the water's edge.
Alli and Ian both are loving climbing on and over any big rocks that they see.
I see that a beaver has been busy damming up this section of the creek.
Thanks for the picture Alli!
It's a beautiful day and the kids are having a great time. Instead of just circling around Witch Hole Pond, we decided to go a bit further to Eagle Lake.
Breakneck Pond is behind them. Hopefully that's not related to the climbing rocks beside it.
Just above us is Eagle Lake Road, but we get to go on the trail underneath the bridge!
I guess I'm just always looking forward and not looking down. Again, I walked right by another snake in the path. The trail here was crowded with bicycles, and it was having a hard time getting across.
I stood in front while bicycles went around and shooed him off into the bushes nearby. When we showed a picture to a ranger later, her guess was that this is a gopher snake. She also said that Acadia doesn't have any venomous snakes around.
Just a little bit further until our halfway point guys!
Taking a brief stop to go down to the water of Eagle Lake.
It would have been nice to hike around it, but the other side is under construction.
Theresa especially liked how the sun was lighting up these leaves.
Time to turn around! You're doing amazing kids!
One of the things we've seen a bunch of on this hike are mushrooms! And there's so many different varieties! I use the app PictureThis to tell me what's what. This one is part of a family that can cause hallucinations, according to the app. We aren't touching any of them.
This looks like an orange slice, with the peel and the pith too!
A funky red topped one.
We tried to find as many different colored mushrooms as we could. This one is yellow.
A dark maroon colored one.
This one is like a reverse Oreo! Like a vanilla cookie with chocolate frosting on the inside.
I wonder what happened here to kill all those trees in the middle of the lake. These are known as Beaver Ponds.
And there's a ton of lily pads on this pond. We didn't see any frogs, but we did start singing Muppet songs while we walked.
Once again I was told about the snake after I passed by it. This one is just a baby. After a little prodding it was clear that it was dead and wasn't going anywhere.
The kids have done great today. Sure they've said their feet are starting to hurt, but it's understandable. For missing out on Jordan Pond this morning, we still figured out something to do. We did an extra loop behind the Witch Hole Pond just so we could have enough to make it.
Kids! You just hiked over a half marathon! That's amazing!
My first hike that was that distance wasn't until my teens! And you're only 5 and 7!
Gorgeous day for a hike...not just any hike, but a half-marathon one!!...kudos to everyone, especially to Alli & Ian (that's A LOT of walking for those young legs). Beautiful photos along the way...especially like that 1st one of Witch's Pond (something about those framing trees and the differing short trees/bushes in front of the pond made the picture feel "complete") Lots of colorful and unusual mushrooms (that first one reminded me of a parasol for some reason; the reverse oreo one was unusual, too). Lots of great pictures (memories) of the kids on the hike! A versatile Dad, first you're a human ladder, now you're a human mule :-) Everyone must have had a good sleep that night! EOM
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