Driving our pair in Acadia National Park, videos!

It’s hard to express how happy we are with all that our boys have accomplished in their short driving careers. In September we spent several days with Gilford and Glendale touring the Carriage Roads in Acadia, near Bar Harbor, Maine. This trip was the culmination of all we have been working towards since we first bred their Arabian mother mare to the Percheron Silent Commander over six years ago, raising and training her two foals to this point.

For a little excitement, here’s the “big spook” they gave us, on our third day out… Gilford on the left got startled by 2 little dogs who were barking and jumping against their leashes, and they took off at a gallop which made me lose my camera aim for a second while I grabbed Gilford’s rein trying to help Hubby rein them in. As you’ll see, they came back under control pretty quickly. At beginning of video, we pass 2 Icelandic horses on the road, one under saddle and one being driven.

An amazing vista is offered above Jordan Pond. As we descend, to our right is what’s called the “Slide,” a huge rockfall area which was braced up and reinforced during construction of the Carriage Road, so that there would be no more slides! The engineering of these roads was remarkable.

We’ve been vacationing with various horses in Acadia for the past 15 years, starting out with riding horses and now mostly driving horses. Our children went with us when they were young, then since they left the nest we’ve been going every year with horse-loving friends. See my other Acadia stories:
Acadia carriage roads from cart and horseback (2007)
Acadia carriage roads horseback in September (2006)
Acadia National Park Maine scenes (2006)
and Baby Colt in Acadia National Park, Maine (2003) about first taking baby Gilford up when he was 3 months old (this year was Gil’s third visit, and Glen’s first …)

A beautiful carriage drive is found along the shores of Bubble Pond. Here the trail is narrow and it would be quite difficult if not impossible for two carriages to pass. Drivers always try to leave out heading the same direction on a loop route, so that they don’t meet head-on!

The ocean is to our right across the highway, and mountains called “the Bubbles” are seen beyond Long Pond to our left. This section of road was a foot under water just 2 days earlier, from all the heavy rains just before we arrived.

Acadia is an area unique in the Northeast, and there are few carriage driving locations in the country that can compare. 57 miles of beautiful roads designed for carriage horses encircle hills, mountains and lakes on Mt. Desert Island; the routes are designed to take advantage of the views, overlooking bays, lakes, waterways, sounds, offshore islands and the open ocean.

One expected challenge was passing the large tour wagons like this one, pulled by draft teams out of Wildwood Stables. We’ve seen many horses get unnerved by these teams so were unsure how our guys would deal with them, but no problems came up.

Driving horses underneath one of these bridges creates its own echo chamber... you can hear it on the video.

On these Carriage Roads no motor vehicles are allowed, only horses, hikers and bicyclists. Wildwood Stables adjacent to the Roads offers commercial carriage tours. The Park and the area offer a great variety of interesting things to enjoy, such as sea kayaking, sailboat excursions, the high-speed “Cat” ferry to Nova Scotia, touring the Park by auto road, spectacular scenery, Bar Harbor shopping and coastal fishing villages to explore.

Crossing the Cobblestone bridge, one of sixteen designed by Mr. Rockefeller, all unique. The stream below is swollen to massive proportions from the torrential rains brought by Hurricane Hannah.

This trip to Acadia was unusual– we arrived to find the Carriage Roads closed to all but foot traffic, due to torrential rains carried by Hurricane Hannah’s aftermath having washed out the roads in several places. Repairs were underway, and the roads were gradually re-opened over the next 4 days so that we really didn’t miss any driving time.

Returning into Wildwood after one of our outings. Going thru the campground, our trailer home is on right with the red truck.

Hope you enjoy our adventures with us in these videos! (Another post will have pictures, also more videos specifically on training, plus videos of other horses that were in Acadia.) One day we rode the boys, it was drizzly and rainy so I did not carry the camera that day therefore no pix of us in the saddle. : ( There are some pix from a bicycling/hiking day when we let the horses have the day off.

Our last day’s drive up Day Mountain normally would have offered spectacular views, but this day was cloudy with fog and mist hanging around, making it “atmospheric.” The tourists were pretty interested in our turnout.