Norumbega Mountain and Time To Say Goodbye

Friday through Sunday  August 11-13, 2017                                                 Most Recent Posts:
Acadia National Park                                                                                   Moving INTO Acadia National Park
Mount Desert Island, Maine                                                                       Chasm Brook Bridge and Udder Heaven   

 

Those of you devoted enough or crazy enough to read all of my posts may realize that this post actually happened before my last one Moving INTO Acadia National Park.  In this post we are still at Narrows Too.  So just pretend you don’t already know all about the move and the clever rock stacks by the shore, I’ll try to do better about remembering which of the multiple posts I’m working on is actually next to be posted.  If you haven’t read either of them, then you still have a chance to read them in the right order.  Use the blue link above and come back to this one.

 

FRIDAY

To hike up Norumbega Mountain we return to a familiar place, Lower Hadlock Pond.  We park Ruby in the same spot as last time and head out on the Lower Hadlock Pond Trail.  It’s early morning and the sunshining right on the pump house.  Much of the lake is in shadow.  It’s all just so beautiful.

 

 

 

 

Once across the dam,  we find the trail signs.  We take Lower Hadlock a bit further and then turn up the trail to the summit of the mountain.

 

The mountain trail is quite varied.  You never know what will be around the bend.

 

 

 

You do know that it will be up at one grade or another.

 

 

 

I guess we could change our minds at this point but since neither of us plays golf, we don’t.

 

 

 

We hit the blueberry gold mine.   The place is covered with low bush blueberries.  I stop on the edge of the trail to pick a few.

 

 

And then a few more.

 

Blueberry picking is addictive.  In a great location, you can’t quit until your back gives up.

 

Finally the back says “enough”.  We hike on  and soon we are seeing some distant view.

 

More berries along the way.  Good thing we never hike without berry bags.  I had no idea Norumbega Mountain was a berry trove.

 

Many of the mountains in Acadia have Jack Pines near or on their summits.  I just love these hardy little pines which put carpets of needles at our feet.  They get themselves into any little space they can find in and among the rocks and even on the rock faces.  How do they do it?

 

 

 

And here we are at the summit which doesn’t have any views right there but if you walk around you can find distant view of  Somes Sound.

I need selfie lessons.

Somes Sound in the distance and Western and Blue Hill Bays beyond that.

 

 

 

There are some serious houses on the far shore of Somes Sound.

 

 

Looking another direction, it is all beautiful green mountains.  There is not a bad view from any summit in Acadia.  So wonderful to see no industrial anything.

 

Time to turn around and back down we go.

 

 

When we reach the bottom, we take the long way around the lake and pass by the pink complex again.  It always makes me laugh.  They’d blend in better if they were green

 

 

My pictures of this trail today are actually better today than the ones I took right after we’d paddled the pond and hiked the trail too.  But since I already posted that so I won’t show the same shots.  It’s a really wonderful trail so if you’d like to see it, here’s the link.

Back at the car David goes down to sit on the big rock and have a snack.

 

 

And that’s the end of our last adventure from Narrows Too Campground, but not our last adventure in Acadia.

 

 

SATURDAY

 

Today we are saying goodbye to Nancy and Bill.    We are out early to bid them farewell as they pull out for South Carolina.   It’s been a great two months in Acadia, wonderful memories.  With hugs all around we  wish them safe, safe and easy travels.  It’s a long way from here to South Carolina.

 

Bill pulls out of the site.

 

 

Nancy waves as she walks to the truck to drive it up to where they will hook it up in front of the office.

 

 

And there they go.  If you know Nancy and Bill you won’t be surprised to hear that it is 7:30am and they are pulling away.  I don’t know anyone else who gets such an early start.

 

 

When they are out of sight,  we decide to have blueberry pancakes in their honor for all the fun berry picking we did this summer.  Besides we have all those we just picked yesterday

 

 

So wonderful to have excess of low bush blueberries that you can put them in the pancakes and on top of the pancakes and even make blueberry syrup for the pancakes.

 

 

 

 

 

SUNDAY

We spend today doing what Bill and Nancy were doing on Friday while we were hiking Norumbega – packing up, getting ready to move.   Being in one spot for two months means we have spread out all over and have nearly every piece of outdoor gear we own set up.

Once we’re finished, it sure looks empty from our patio with them gone, nothing but the bare picnic table, and nobody within 3 sites of us.   Boy are the birds going to miss both of our feeder set ups.

 

But this isn’t the end of our Acadia adventures.  We aren’t heading seriously south just yet.  We’re only moving into the park to a site at Seawall Campground.   But that’s for another post, one you may have already read.  Oh well. . . .