We spent our second day in Acadia National Park today, spending most of our time hiking around Jordan Pond. As the weather was good and the sun was out, we started out on the coast to see the difference compared to yesterday when it was dark and rainy. Later in the day, after finishing at Jordan Pond, we visited some other ponds and lakes in the park before calling it a day.
Ocean Path
After entering Acadia National Park, we stopped at the first parking lot past Sand Beach as we recall having nice views from this spot. And indeed it was quite nice! What a difference compared to yesterday!
We next stopped at the southernmost parking lot before the winter road closure on the way to Otter Point. Again, beautiful views!
There were definitely quite a few icy spots remaining though!
Looking back inland from below a large patch of ice.
Jordan Pond
We started out at the parking lot on the south end of Jordan Pond. This is the only area by the pond that is accessible by car during the winter. We headed right to the water and started walking counter-clockwise. While there was no ice on the pond, quite a few of the rocks by the shore were covered with ice!
In some areas, the ice built up, looking like a ton of tiny icebergs crammed together. There were also many interesting icicle formations. The tree trunk at the top of the frame has some interesting icicles that have formed little pillars of ice underneath.
A short video showing the ice floating at the edge of the pond. Poor color matching to the photos because I’m generally terrible with video and colors don’t work at all like they do in Lightroom! I would love a “make this video look like this still shot” but I haven’t found a way to do that yet unfortunately.
While we were hiking in the shade due to the sun being behind us and blocked by trees, it was sunny on the far side of the pond. We saw quite a few frozen falls of ice high up on the mountainside.
Back on our side the pond, we saw many rocks that were encased in ice. Many had just a cap of ice with tiny icicles dropping down almost to the surface of the pond. Some had a cap that was a bit higher up.
Here, a layer of ice next to some shallow open water with little rocks on the bottom.
We also saw interesting ice formations on various trees that had fallen into the pond.
Most of the interesting ice formations were near the start of the trail, likely due to the absence of sunlight for most of the day. As we walked northwards, we saw very little ice. There were actually a few icy patches on the trail though, some of which were unavoidable, but luckily they were all on flat ground and easily walked over.
Eventually, we reached the far side of the pond, about 1.5 miles after we started. There was a little rocky beach there. We didn’t take any photos of the view as the sun was directly to the south and low on the horizon as it is normally is during winter.
We saw a few interesting icy spots as we returned via the west side of the pond.
While most of the trail around the pond was flat and easy, there was one sketchy spot that required walking on rocks for awhile. Nothing too hard but an interesting experience after not doing any sort of rough ground walking in awhile due to having knee reconstruction surgery!
After this rocky section, there was a very long portion made up of two trunk thick sections of boardwalk. It seemed to go on and on and on! It was mostly easy walking though there was a bit of light ice here and there. No photographs as the scenery there wasn’t all that photogenic.
Finally, almost back to where we started! We could see the small boat launch were we started our hike just on the other side near the south end of the pond.
Another interesting icy rock near the end of our hike.
Many of these little plant stalks sticking out of the pond also each carried a little chunk of ice!
The view from the only bench on the trail!
Finally, back to where we started! A almost identical view to the first photo from the pond. Very different appearance though with a mostly overcast sky and rather uniform lighting.
Hadlock Ponds
After leaving Jordan Pond, we visited Lower and Upper Hadlock Ponds. Both were smaller than Jordan Pond and both had partially frozen surfaces. We didn’t spend much time at either.
Eagle Lake
We finished our day in Acadia at Eagle Lake. This lake is about a mile to the north of Jordan Pond and can be accessed via various parking lots on its northern shore. We didn’t spend too much time hiking around the lake as the trail wasn’t as compelling as Jordan Pond. It was mostly a very wide carriage road and didn’t closely follow the lake shoreline. There appears to be a short section of normal hiking trail on the far end of the lake, more than we were ready for in the remaining hours of the short winter day.
Bar Harbor
After leaving Acadia, we headed to the pier at Bar Harbor just to the north of the park. Not much was going on with just one boat moored away from the dock. Everything in this section of town was closed. We did see part of the sand bar that the town is named after. One can walk across at low tide to access an island to the north of town. It was about half-way between high and low tides so not much of it was visible.