Riding Acadia's Carriage Trails

On Saturday morning, Kathy and I went into town and rented two e-bikes for half the day so we could ride on the Acadia National Park's Carriage roads. The roads and bridges, created by John D. Rockefeller in the 1930s, are automobile free, but electric bikes are allowed.

The roads are fine gravel, so they were a little harder to ride on than the Cape Code Rail Trail which is all paved. From where we picked up the bikes in town it was about a mile and a half to the park entrance at Duck Creek Bridge.

Because we had only half of a day, we decided to first do the Eagle Lake loop to the south of the Park entrance (instead of riding all the way to Jordan Pond, which we would have done if we had all day).

The roads were not crowded, but there was quite a bit of climbing. It wasn't flat at all. Even with the electric bikes, it was a workout for me. Kathy thought that it was fine.

Because we rode a shorter loop, we arrived back at the Park entrance with an hour and a half left on our rental, so we decided to head north under one of the iconic Rockefeller bridges and ride around the Witch Pond loop.

This was also a pretty ride and the pond was lovely. All around Eagle Lake there were signs that said no swimming, because it was a public water supply. There were no such signs around Witch Pond, but I can't imagine anyone swimming in it.

We got the bikes back just in time and I was pretty tired, but not as completely wasted as when we rode the whole day. We picked up sandwiches at Subway and went back to our room for lunch and some recuperation. Around three, we headed back to the Park in our car to drive the Park Loop Road. 

The two-lane, one-way, 27-mile loop covers most of Desert Island. You can stop and park in the right lane. At the end of the island is a feature called the Thunder Hole. We got out and Kathy took this video. 

Early in the morning we're heading for New Hampshire, stopping off in Bangor, Maine for church.