At the bus stop at the campground I was chatting with some retired folks – they were traveling together and mentioned that I was hiking Penobscot & Sargent and the a nice young man who standing there too said that he’d hiked that yesterday – did the same loop I was planning and it was magnificent! He told me a bit about the trail that I had I known earlier I might have changed my plans – the trail is very steep in places, and by steep I mean like vertical, sit on your butt and scoot steep. But it was only in 2 places, the rest of the trail was easy.
I arrived at Jordan Pond at 10:15 and headed down the trail. The guy was right. It was very steep, almost like rock climbing! But there were plenty of hand helds and iron rungs in some places (to hold on to…when I’d first heard iron rungs, I was thinking ladders to climb and I didn’t think I liked that!). The climb up was only about ½ mile, maybe less and then it leveled out and was wide open!
The rest of the trail up, about a mile was exposed ridgeline! It looked very alpine with rocks and low growing bushes and views on all sides. Pretty awesome and well worth the tough climb up. The walk from there was very easy and I kept stopping to take pictures. It was a cloudy day, but at the time I was hiking the clouds were high and didn’t obstruct the views! The clouds were a good thing I think, it would be brutally hot up there on a sunny day!
After the summit of Penobscot I headed down a bit into a pine forest and came quickly to Sargent Pond and then the trail went back up again, more gently this time, before opening up again to go up Sargent. Again it was a lovely hike with views on all sides! You could Pencobscot, and then once you got high enough you could see the ocean beyond the peak! Sargent Mountain is the 2nd highest in the park, only 200 ft shorter than Cadillac and you could see almost the entire park from up there! It was very windy but I got out the map anyway to try and identify peaks. Attempting to refold the map was the bigger challenge. I ended up taking some video so I could id everything at the bottom! I accidentally uploaded the video to the album so you can look at it!
After a little while on the summit it was time to head down! I headed down a different way than I’d come up and on the way down I had great views of Eagle Lake, Cadillac Mt, Pemetic Mt, and Frenchman’s Bay. The terrain reminded of Glacier NP – which makes sense because Acadia was created by Glaciers!
Soon though I came to the steep part of the descent. WOW. It was steep! This way down was a bit less steep than the way up, but it was longer. The rocks were smaller and there was a lot of loose stone. I actually think this was the harder way down because you really had to concentrate and go slow. It took me over an hour to hike .8 mile! When I finally got to the trail marker I was very happy. Until I discovered that I was not at the Jordan Pond trail yet. I still had to go down. Then I got to the Carriage Road – again I thought I was done, but I still had more down. Finally I reached the flat Jordan Pond trail. I was at the far northern point – exactly ½ way around. I elected to take the eastern side so I could look at where I’d been.
I’m glad I did the loop in the direction that I did because it was nice having the flat Jordan Pond trail at the end. I was tired though and it was slow going. It also started to rain – aggressively sprinkle really, when I got to Jordan Pond and as I walked I watch the clouds roll in and suck the mountain into the fog. I had great timing! Had I been any later getting up there I wouldn’t have gotten the views!
I finally reached the Jordan Pond House. I’d been thinking I would get a hot fudge sundae but by the time I got there the fog was rolling in and it was chilly so I elected to have popovers and lemonade. Popovers are a signature Jordan Pond thing and they are quite odd – kinda like eggy bread. Very strange. You put butter and jam on them. They were warm and tasted good, but I’m not sure I need to have them again! As I snacked I watched the clouds eat up the Bubbles – 2 domed mountains at the north end of the pond.
After my snack and a trip through the gift shop I headed to the bus and back to the Village Green. The weather was turning really nasty. I did a little shopping in Bar Harbor, got dinner at a little café and then headed back to the bus. By this time it was raining and thundering! I got back to the RV a bit early but it was dark and rainy and nasty. I turned on the hot water heater and took a quick shower, uploaded my pics and headed to bed!
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| Maine - Day 7 Penobsoct & Sargent |
1 comment:
Very pretty. But Alex wants to know why you took so many pictures of rocks. :)
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