Day 121: Trenton to Acadia National Park

September 29, 2021

Loop Road and a Carriage Road

“Did you have a good ride,” the shuttle bus driver asks as we board at the Visitors Center. This is the same driver from this morning. “Yes, thank you,” Patrick says.

We layer up as it is cooler this morning. Patrick figures it will take us 15 minutes to ride to the Narrows campground where we can pick up the free Island shuttle to the Visitors Center. We time it pretty good; as we are riding up the shuttle bus pulls into the parking area and we load our bikes on the front carrier. The buses can take up to 6 bikes. The Visitor Center is a zoo, there is a long line of tourists waiting to enter the giftshop and information center. We pick up a map of the park and carriage roads and ride out quickly.

The first section of road is two-way traffic and pretty busy. Some people seem to be in a hurry, even when driving a National Park. When we reach the one way double lane road along the east coast of the island we can relax. The Loop road is hilly and pleasant riding. We stop at the viewpoints and picnic areas for breaks. The coast is beautiful with dramatic rock shelves down to the ocean and wide vistas towards the open Atlantic. There is a little color in the trees. What gets us though is the crowds, it is pretty much impossible to make a photo with no people in it, every rock seems to be occupied by a person. When we get to the Jordan Pond junction we leave the Loop Road and take a carriage road along Jordan and Eagle Lakes. The map gives us directions from one junction to the next. Eventually we get back to the visitors center. One section is marked steep and we find that for us that’s a steep downhill to the parking lot of the Visitors Center.

We think we’ve timed catching the bus again perfectly, only it’s lunchtime for the drivers and we wait for a half hour for service to resume. The shuttle bus system is run on time and there are many different routes, one being the whole loop road, another a connection to downtown Bar Harbor and the Visitors Center.

We ride back to our campground, Patrick continues on another mile to a market to get some supplies for tomorrow and beer for tonight. For dinner we are having left over taco salad. Rachel has time to do another load of laundry. Always best to start out with everything clean not knowing when the next opportunity will come.

Patrick contacts more Warmshowers hosts for the next and final stage from Bar Harbor to Portland.