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September 2023 (Part 07)

Maine Trip - Wednesday, Sep 27: Jordan's Pond and Bubble Mountain

We next headed into the park and headed off on the Jordan Pond Loop Trail.  The loop itself goes 7 mi around the lake, but we added another 0.77 mi to go up Bubble Trail up South Bubbles Mountain, ascending the steep south side and descending the only a bit milder north side.

Loved this weirdly formed tree near the start of the loop.

Jordan Pond was beautiful.

The Bubble Trail turned out to be a pretty steep ascent up a granite peak.  Even part of the way up, we were rewarded with spectacular views.

The trail crew had been very busy, providing a number of steps with wood or rocks.  The path was incredibly well maintained, and clearly marked with both paint blazes and some cairns.

Made it to the top!

Here is Bubble Rock, precariously perched near a ledge and left behind in that position by a long-ago glacier.

Back down and on the Jordan Pond loop, we stopped at a small bridge over the stream that feeds the lake.

We were amazed at the amount of work put in by trail crews over the years.   The trail on much of the west side of the lake included wooden planks and platforms to protect the soft and wet path.

We were pretty happy to get back to the Jordan Pond House at the south end of the lake, which had a small restaurant.  We were rather late for our reservation, but were really happy they still sat us (the hostess laughed that 40-min late actually wasn't too bad).  One of the top rated things to do in the park was to eat the "popovers" there, which turned out to be puff pastry served with butter and strawberry jam.  Our table was on their lawn area, which had a great view but also brought bees attracted to the food, especially the jam.

We could see Bubble Rock up on the hillside as we drove out.