This adventure starts right at the Jordan Pond House. Take the Stanley Brook road entrance. It is quick and easy access into the park without having to take the park loop road all the way around, in and out. This was the first time I used this entrance and it was great! (Note: If you are winter hiking, this road is closed from December-April).
We took the Jordan Pond loop over to the "Around the Mountain Carriage Trail" so that we could access the Spring trail. The original plan was to take the Jordan Cliffs trail, however, the trail was closed for the Pengrine Falcon Nesting Season. I quickly redirected us to the Spring Trail which you can connect directly onto the Penobscot Mountain Trail from there.
Once you make it to Penobscot Mountain you can keep going straight ahead to skirt around Sargent Mountain Pond and connect on to the Sargent South Ridge Trail. This trail will take you directly to Sargent Mountain. Just follow the cairns and you will be fine, the trail is pretty straight forward, open and gorgeous.
We stopped at Sargent and had a snack. It's a great place to stop for views and a decent halfway point for this loop. While at Sargent, I found a loop to add another peak to cross off of my ANP Mountain list and made it so we could do a loop vs a true out and back. It also made it nice so that we didn't have to come back down over the ledges of the Spring Trail that we climbed up.
On the way back from Sargent, there is a trail on the right named the Hadlock Brook Trail. This trail is so nice and gets you back into a wooded section which helps you switch up the terrain a little bit. You can hear the water flowing from Haddock Brook. Off of this trail you begin to go straight up again when you hook onto the Ampitheatre Trail. You connect back onto the South Ridge Sargent Trail which will take you over to Cedar Swamp Mountain. This mountain doesn't have a lot to write home about, however it did help me cross another one of the 37 peaks off of the ANP list.
You head back towards the Ampitheatre trail which really opens up and is SO gorgeous. I highly reccommend checking out this trail by itself if you aren't up for the mountain portions. Once you get to the stone bridge that you walk under at the river crossing, you can cross and walk up to the carriage road trail. This will put you back on the around the mountain trail which brings you back by the original trailhead you will use to take this route. Eventually you make it back to Jordan Pond and the parking area.
Overall, this loop was about 7.26 miles round trip. With a snack break and some photo opportunities, this loop still only took us a little over 4 hours which isn't bad. We had a gorgeous day in Acadia National Park. We were there before major crowds, we had no bugs bothering us and it was a beautiful blue bird day!
We lucked out and were ahead of all the of traffic in Acadia National Park for such a beautiful day. I highly recommend this loop. I wouldn't rate this dog friendly. The Jordan Cliffs trail certainly is not, and even the spring trail we went up, I know Brock would have had some issues. Some smaller, nimble dogs could probably do this easily. Just keep in mind what the capabilites of your dog are.
Happy Hiking
-Amanda & Brock