On the bubble.....

6:38 am - Friday - August 24th - Southwest Harbor, ME - 56º F, 91% humidity, wind 5 mph out of the west......sunny with a forecast high today of 73º F.

It had been two days since we last took a hike, and we were anxious to get out and put some more miles on our odometers so we headed to Jordan Pond about 9:20 am to see if we could snag a parking spot and knock out two trails in one trip.....the Jordan Pond Loop, and the South Bubble/Bubble Rock trails.  There are three trails you can take to reach Bubble Rock.  The most popular, because it is the easiest, is the trail beginning in a parking lot off Route 6....it is very difficult to get a parking spot there unless you arrive before 8 am.  The second and third trails branch off the Jordan Pond Loop trail.  Little did we know at the beginning of the day we would be choosing the most difficult of the three.......

......we reached the Jordan Pond parking lot about 9:40 am and were able to snag one of about 10 remaining parking spots....within 20 minutes they would be all gone, and then the waiting game would begin for those arriving after 10 am.  Twice we have arrived before 10 am and gotten a spot easily.  After putting on our Camelbaks we walked a short distance down to what they call the 'boat ramp'.....it is just a place where people put in kayaks, and canoes.....

Explain to me how this is a 'pond'....

......the skies had been relatively cloudy when we left home, but they began to clear as started our trek.  By the end of our hike, 2.5 hours later, there would be virtually no clouds left......

.....the trail circumnavigating Jordan Pond is reputed be 3.1 miles in length and is pretty much a flat walk all around the lake......I really cannot bring myself to call it a pond.  The word 'pond' just conjures up a completely different image in my mind.  Our plan was to pick up the trail to South Bubble, and the famous 'Bubble Rock', about a mile, or so into the Jordan Pond Loop trail.....'Bubble Rock' is technically a 'peculiarly placed glacial erratic', or in layman's terms, just a big rock which appears to be on the verge of falling over the cliff....more on that later......

.....after about 1.3 miles of very easy hiking we came to the fork in the trail where we picked up the .4 mile trail up to Bubble Summit and Bubble Rock.  It began as a very steep, rocky ascent.....nothing new here, right?  Eventually we came to a point where we could see Jordan Pond, and then the fun really began......

......I wish I had taken pictures of the 25 yard section we had to literally climb, hand over hand, to reach the summit, but I was scared spitless....the last thing on my mind was freeing up either of my hands to take a picture.  It took us literally 25 minutes to go that last 25 yards.  Several times we were stymied about how to get to the next level, but finally figured it out.  There was one point where I thought we might have to turn back, but the thought of having to descend what we just had climbed scared me more than continuing the ascent.  Eventually TLE and I safely made it to the top of the precipice where we sat down to regain our composure....it was then I took the picture just below......

......that granite ledge you see in the foreground hides a 75-100 foot wall which you must scale quite carefully to avoid becoming a statistic.....I could not bring myself to walk back to the edge and take a picture of what it looked like......

....within 5 minutes we were smiling again, and so very grateful we did not have to descend the same trail to get back to the Jordan Pond trail.......

......in the picture above you ca see people 'trying' to push the famous Bubble Rock over the edge.....of course it cannot be done, but everyone, but us, seemed compelled to give it a try......

......eventually we reached the South Bubble summit which sits at 763' above sea level at which time we began the much gentler descent  back to the Jordan Pond trail....

......once we hit the Jordan Pond trail it was easy walking again, and we quickly finished the circumnavigation of the lake.......

  Looking south toward Jordan Pond House

.....the last half mile of the trail was upon this boardwalk which kept us off the ground to protect the native flora and fauna.......

......we arrived back at the car around 12:30 pm having covered just 4 miles.......

......in spite of the slow, hair raising climb to South Bubble, we averaged over 2 mph covering the aforementioned 4 miles in one hour and forty-two minutes of 'moving' time, gained 546' in elevation, and burned 725 caloric units in the process.

Well, after that exhilarating hike what more perfect way to celebrate our still being alive than to stop off at the Asticou Inn for some popovers and coffee......

.....by the way, their coffee is amazing, and I'm sure, magical.  We talked like two magpies for about an hour before paying our check and heading for home.  On the way we stopped at the Food Mart to pick up some fixin's for some of TLE's famous salsa, as well as more fixin's for some good old fashioned Cadillac Margaritas......and that my friends was our dinner....chips, salsa and Cadillac Margaritas.....isn't it great being an adult?

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