Chasm Brook Bridge and Udder Heaven

August 9 & 10, 2017                                             Most Recent Posts:
Wednesday and Thursday                                    Bald, Parkman and Gilmore – A Lot More Than We Bargained For
Acadia National Park                                           The Beautiful Thuya Gardens in Bloom

 

 

WEDNESDAY

Wednesday has become bridge day for me.  David goes to treatment, I take the bus to hike to a bridge. 

Today it’s Chasm Brook Bridge.
The bus starts picking up at Narrows Too Campground late in the morning for me – 9am.   I ride to the Bar Harbor Village Green and take the Jordon Pond bus to the Bubbles Pond Parking Lot where these days only the bus can be.  No more parking here, just bus drop off.    From the parking lot, red star on the right of the map, I take the carriage road up to Post #7, and make a left to go by the narrow end of Eagle Lake.  I’m on my way to Chasm Brook Bridge, gold star on the map.

I pass by Eagle Lake.  It’s nice to be hiking along the water even for such a short stretch.

 

I leave the water and the road continues to rise.  90% of this hike from the parking lot to the bridge is up hill.  Of course that means it will be downhill on the way back. YES!   The woods are beautiful.

 

The green all around the little rocky stream I pass really stands out.

 

Then boy am I surprised to see this green thing on the carriage road.

 

This is more what I’m used to in terms of vehicles here.  Lots of folks are out today.  It is August and it is now nearly 11 am due to all the buses I had to take and their schedules.

 

I’ve talked a lot about the signage on the carriage roads this summer and today I’m going to give a better look. 

It’s about 2 miles to post #8.  At the intersection there are folks conferring about which way to go but I’m all set with my map. I’m making another left turn

 

From there I carry on and soon come to Post #10.  Now this one is really tricky without a map.  There are actually three posts.  I’ve shown close ups of two of them, 10N and 10S.  Take a look and you can see how confusing this is.  I suppose it helps to have a superior sense of direction and know for sure which way is North.     But again, I have my map so I know where I’m going.   Guess which way. 

 

We’ve run into numerous people who didn’t have a clue and without a map were lost until we showed them ours. Some had gone a LONG way out of their way just following the signs. I remember in particular one family with two teen girls who were pretty irritated that their dad had gone the wrong way.  They thought they should be at Jordan Pond by now only to discover they still had 2 miles to go.  Don’t think the girls were into hiking.

 

 

Enough uphill already.  After over 3 miles, I’m ready for the bridge.  And here it is.

 

 

I walk across it, go down on the easy side for a as much of a picture as I can get.  Unlike many of the other bridges, this one does not have a sculpted path down and is pretty seriously overgrown.

 

 

Back up on the road, I find the date of the bridge.  1926.  An oldie.

 

 

 

I get a picture from the other side but there is no easy way down from here either.

 

While I contemplate what to do next, I check my new hiking app.  I forgot my pedometer today which I use to tell how far I’ve hiked.  So on the bus I hunted up a phone app to test out and see how it works.  I don’t usually carry my phone if David is with me but when he’s not, I do.

Here’s what it tells me and I think it’s pretty acurate.  3.29 miles to the bridge.  Took 1 hour 16 minutes and on another page it tells me I’ve done 8157 steps thus far.  Nice!

It even has the elevation Bill.  If you are hiking out west, don’t you dare laugh.

 

It’s not yet noon and I have plenty of time left so I think since no one is around that I’ll follow what looks like a little unauthorized path up the hill on the far side of the bridge and see what I can see.

What I find is that I can barely see the bridge for all the folliage and it looks pretty rough down there in the stream bed.

 

I go up a little higher and on to some rocks in what is obviously the stream when it’s running.

 

I could go on up and see where it goes but I still have to walk the 3 miles back. As I return to the road, I’m a bit surprised to see how high up I am.

 

 

 

I say goodbye to sweet little Chasm Brook Bridge and with that I’ve hiked to all of the Carriage Road Bridges in Acadia National Park. 

 

My route back is the same but on the way I pass other users of the carriage roads.

 

I pass a trail head to Connor’s Nubble, site of fabulous Berry picking trips this summer.

 

 

And I see what that machine is doing driving on the carriage roads.

 

 

 

When I see Rockefeller’s teeth protecting  the Eagle Lake shore on my left this time, I know I’m nearly back to the bus stop.

 

I catch the bus at the Bubble Pond Parking Lot which takes me back to the Bar Harbor Village Green and then I take the bus back to Narrows Too.  AND  without stopping for ice cream in Bar Harbor.

But that’s only because we’re going out for ice cream with Bill and Nancy tomorrow.

 

THURSDAY

Here we are, Udder Heaven.  We’re only interested in the ice cream but apparently there is Breakfast and BBQ and Lobster as well.

 

Not sure who was first up to check out the three column menu but I know it wasn’t me.

 

They don’t have Jamaica Me Crazy so we have to pick something else.  That takes a while.

 

I actually have the same size as David but it looks like more in my cup with a cone on top.

 

David’s laughing because Bill is trying so hard not to let me take a picture of him and his ice cream.  Nancy’s not quite so amused.

 

We all only have a few more days here at Narrows Too.  Bill and Nancy head back south on Saturday and we leave for Seawall Campground the next day.  We sure have had fun even if Bill doesn’t want his picture taken.