Before dawn, we leave Bar Harbor again, heading south. Jane is irritated with me; it is waffle day at the Yankee Lady Inn, and I am making her miss waffles to catch sunrise. "It's bed-and-breakfast, not bed-and-leave-before-breakfast!" She pontificates around this central point the entire drive down. I admire the woman for her unshakeable principles. We follow the winding Park Loop Road, officially entering Acadia National Park on the island's rocky Atlantic coast. Retracing our steps, we pass the parking lot where we stopped for astrophotography two nights before; it is much less foreboding in the early morning light. Near the southeastern tip of the island, we pull into a trailhead parking lot at Otter Cliff and set out on a 5-mile loop hike that will take us north along the coast and back south via the summits of The Beehive and Gorham Mountain.
The sun creeps over the ocean and casts a golden light over us as we walk along the cliffs. At Otter Cliff and Monument Cove, we climb down to the stone beach, its surface littered with rock cairns. The air warms up quickly as we approach Thunder Hole; at low tide, its hand-railed causeway is silent, raised high above the lapping ocean waves. After we pass Sand Beach, we descend from the cliff, following the park road to the trailhead for The Beehive, where one park ranger is sitting in a pickup truck and another is performing maintenance on one of the entrance signposts. We turn into the forest.
Here the climb begins, at first up through the pine forest and along the smooth rock slopes that we have grown quite used to. Soon, it becomes a scramble up a series of granite ledges. We shed our jackets and follow the blue trail blazes around corners and cliffsides, hugging the rock wall, our feet dangling over the forest below us. Along the narrowest and steepest portions, handrails are placed to assist the climb, and there are a few brief series of iron ladder rungs up the side of the mountain. We briefly wonder whether the park rangers at the trailhead have gotten around to maintaining the rest of the trail. In spite of this, I am enamored by the climb, the heights, and the open air - not as worried, in any case, as Jane, who has again transformed into safety-officer-in-chief. "Stop taking pictures! Watch where you're going!" she says. "Uh-huh," I reply. As we climb, the view to our east opens up; the forest all around us, and Sand Beach tucked in a cove formed by Schooner Head. In the distance to our south, we can see the headland jutting out at Otter Cliff, where we started our walk. At the summit, we sit on a rock facing Champlain Mountain and Frenchman Bay to the north, and breakfast on slices of cheese and bread. There is no one else with us on the mountain.
We turn south now, descending the Beehive from its back and continuing along the rocky spine toward Gorham Mountain. The woodland path climbs up and down the mountain, opening intermittently into barren clearings with startling ocean views. Autumn is in full swing, a kaleidoscope of colors coating the landscape before us - the reds of the wild blueberry brush, the oranges and yellows of the deciduous trees, the greens and teals of the pine forest, and the shining, cerulean blue of the Atlantic Ocean. At the summit of Gorham Mountain, we take another break before following the rock cairns down the side of the mountain, the granite glowing now in the mid-morning sun. We emerge from the mountain path back onto the side of Park Loop Road, and backtrack along the Ocean Path, reaching our car at 11 AM.
Pulling out of the lot, we continue along Park Loop Road, which soon becomes curves north, becoming one-directional as it re-approaches the park entrance. Our stop for the afternoon is Jordan Pond; we head into the Jordan Pond House, which sits, with its big lawn opening onto the shore, on the south end of the pond with a big lawn. In the summer, the place would undoubtedly be swarming with tourists and walkers enjoying afternoon tea and popovers (a light, fluffy, hollow roll - not unlike a Yorkshire pudding - served with butter, cream, and fruit jams), and tables and tents would pack the lawn. Today, despite the gorgeous scenery and fine weather, there is hardly a soul at Jordan Pond; I have made a lunch reservation, but find it totally unnecessary. The off-season comes early here in Maine. We sit on the mezzanine overlooking the main dining hall and enjoy a quiet lunch of chowder and shepherd's pie accompanied by crab-and-artichoke dip spread on crostinis.
After lunch, we walk down toward the shore and take in the view of the pond - another north-south finger lake carved by an ancient glacier, and now a natural reservoir for drinking water for the island's communities. To the north, looming over the pond are two breasts of granite - the North and South Bubbles; the hillsides all around are coated with golden foliage. "Do you think they do weddings here?" I hear Jane murmur somewhere behind me as we cross the lawn behind the restaurant. "Hm?" "Oh, nothing..." she says.
We stroll along the periphery of the pond, counter-clockwise. The east shore is an easy dirt path with a few footbridge crossings over narrow streams feeding into the lake. I stop to photograph the foliage while Jane walks on ahead. At the north end of the pond, we turn uphill and begin an arduous rock scramble - much tougher than the well-manicured trail up the Beehive - up the skirt of South Bubble. Climbing from boulder to boulder, at times on hands and knees to take load off of our ankles, we ascend the steep path out of the forest. Near the top, we pull ourselves onto several tall rock ledges - no handrails or ladder steps here. Climbing out of a crevice, I become comically wedged in the space between two rocks. Jane laughs while I try to extract myself; I blame it on my tripod, not my butt. "I'm just glad I've been doing pull-ups," she says. Just as I crawl up out of the crevice, we encounter a Chinese family coming the other way. The immediately ask us, in Chinese, for directions. "Is that way steep?" I am quite literally heaving and panting at this point. I glance down at their feet - they are all wearing flip-flops, Lord knows why. "It's... not... so bad," I manage to gasp. They look at me incredulously before deciding to proceed. We never saw them again, by which I can only assume they made it down the mountain safely.
On top of South Bubble, we are greeted by sweeping views over Jordan Pond. To our east, just under us, Park Loop Road curves along the hillside through the forest. Far to our south, we can just make out a speck at the head of a grass lawn - the Jordan Pond House and our parked car. We stare at them wistfully. Far beyond, we can see clear to the Atlantic Ocean and the other islands in the bay. It is a pretty sight, and I take a few moments to capture one of my favorite images of the trip - the above 20-shot panorama of Jane taking in the view. We follow the granite along the summit, coming soon to Bubble Rock - a massive, car-sized boulder perched perilously on the edge of the mountain. A glacial erratic deposited by the same glaciers that shaped Jordan Pond to our south and Eagle Lake to our north, not unlike the boulders we saw at the summit of Old Rag Mountain in Virginia, or the massive rocks strewn across the middle-of-nowhere lava floodplains of Iceland. It looks like it could topple over and crash down onto Park Loop Road at a moment's notice. "Go push on it," I say to Jane. "Hell no," she replies.
After resting for a few minutes, we climb back down the way we came, back down to the pond. My right ankle is admittedly feeling tight at this point, and I descend carefully, using my hands more than I would have otherwise. A sprained ankle or, worse, a nasty fall would certainly put a damper on our vacation. Back on the pondside trail, we continue west and then south, finishing up the loop. The western shore of the pond is even prettier than the east, especially in the golden, mid-afternoon light. The path crosses a picturesque log bridge with a high arch, then hops across a series of boulders before transforming into a boardwalk through the trees and lakeside marshland. We stroll along the boards, the clonking of our boots accentuating the gentle lapping of water on the shore and beneath our feet. With the sun hidden from our view by the hillside and the trees, the endless, twisting boardwalk becomes hauntingly beautiful. It reminds both of us of Channelwood, a world of trees and water from the computer game Myst.
Back at the car, we leave the Pond House behind and continue north, turning off the take the winding road toward the summit of Cadillac Mountain. It is past 4 PM now, and we are heading to the Blue Hill Overlook to watch the sun set over Mt. Desert Island. At the overlook, we find a nice herd of tripods and photographers perched against the railing. We walk north and climb the granite slope out of the parking lot; just thirty meters away, we find unobstructed views of the landscape dropping away to our west, and not a soul in sight (a tip courtesy of Mt. Desert Island native James Kaiser and his travel guide Acadia). We find a rock to sit on, and I set up my tripod for a timelapse while Jane explores the brush on the hillside. At the top of the mountain, the wind is biting, and it gets colder and colder as the sun disappears toward the horizon; we put on our heavy coats and pull our hoods over our heads. Jane is sitting next to me now, waiting patiently as I photograph minute-by-minute over the next hour; the mid-autumn sunset is fast, but not fast enough. As it grows dark, I pack up and we walk back to the car. Our noses are both chilly, and my gloveless fingers are more than a little numb.
Back in Bar Harbor, we stop by the supermarket again to buy dinner. We are finally getting tired of chowder, and our dining options are getting more and more limited by the day, as the town prepares for its winter slumber. We arrive back at June's house with a full rack of barbeque ribs, coleslaw, macaroni & ham salad, and more cheese and bread; June graciously allows us to prepare our spread in her dining room. "You two are almost my last guests of the year!" she tells us. "I've got one more couple coming in tomorrow, and a single man visiting from Germany later in the week... and that's all." We munch on ribs while June watches TV in the living room.
The next morning, Jane sleeps in. I take the car, driving in pitch-black, back to the summit of Cadillac Mountain, with its views over Bar Harbor, Frenchman Bay, and the Porcupine Isles. For most of the year, the barren top of Cadillac Mountain is the first place in the entire United States to be touched by the rays of sunrise, and on a clear day, the views eastward can extend all the way to Nova Scotia and the Bay of Fundy. It is, however, not a clear day; there are a few other sunrise-catchers pacing the slopes around me, and a light drizzle comes down on us as we wait in the near-dark. A faint, pink glow appears in the cloud layers over the ocean to the east, but the sun denies us an appearance. The blue light grows swiftly brighter, and soon I am the only one there, sitting in the rain against my boulder on the hillside.
Back in Bar Harbor, we have one last breakfast with June, who has made French toast with maple syrup, sausages, and scrambled eggs, served with coffee, milk, and juice. She notices how quickly Jane devours her plate, and asks if we would like seconds. "Oh, no thank you, I'm alright!" Jane lies. We both agree later on that June's cooked breakfasts were our favorite meals of the trip. After breakfast, we pack our bags, bid farewell to our hostess, and head out. We take another stroll around Bar Harbor (I am looking for an antique map of the island to match my map of Iceland; I later find it, but only on Etsy), which is all but deserted on this Tuesday morning, a strange, ghost version of the lively town we saw on Saturday with its throngs of tourists and marathoners. Our souvenir shopping complete, we return to our car and drive back along State Highway 3, off of the island, headed northwest to Bangor. At Bangor's tiny, 10-gate airport, we are the only people in line for security screening; we take a nap in the quiet terminal as we wait for our flight home to Baltimore.