The attraction of the South Bubble trail is that at the top is a large boulder called Bubble Rock, appearing to balance precariously atop the eastern slope.  On our earlier visits to Acadia, as we traveled the Loop Road, we could see people standing beside Bubble Rock; they seemed to be likelier than rock itself to come tumbling down the mountainside.  We thought they were nuts.

When we finally hiked the South Bubble trail ourselves many years ago, we discovered that Bubble Rock rests mostly on a flat ledge.  Only a small space on one side of the boulder opens to a sheer drop.  Otherwise, Bubble Rock stands between us and the steep eastern side of the moutain (the trail that sane people take ascends the north side).  Even an acrophobiac like me can confidently stand on the shelf in front of Bubble Rock, as I did so on our previous hike, posing for photographs in which I pretended to be prying it loose with my walking stick.

This year we climbed to South Bubble with the three boys.  For Jeremy (age 4), this was familiar ground; he had already done the first third of the trail when we climbed the North Bubble.  For Christopher (age 7) and Matthew (age 2 going on 3), this was their first mountain hike.  Since we had three neophyte trail hobbits, we also had three adults – David, the scoutmaster, to maintain discipline; Kate, to assist and take most of the photographs; and Grandpa, to guard the rear.

Since Kate and I had already seen how readily Jeremy took to the North Bubble trail, we had no doubt about the boys' ability to handle the South Bubble.  For Christopher, it was a piece of cake; the only trouble was slowing him down, but David's reminders that "a team goes only as fast as its slowest member" seemed to do the trick.  Matthew, the youngest, is actually as big, or bigger than, Jeremy and is built like a linebacker, so he managed to keep the pace.  I began to wonder whether the "slowest member" David alluded to was Grandpa.

The South Bubble trail has some large boulders that must be climbed and crossed, but the boys had no difficulty.  I confess that Matthew's methods sometimes lacked grace and could be quite amusing when viewed from the rear, but he wasn't going to let a few minor obstacles stop him.  The others may have been goats; this kid is a human bulldozer.  Looking back on the hike, I had to wonder what the trail looked like, especially from the perspective of the two smaller boys.  Some places looked formidable enough to me.  How must they have looked to someone whose eyes are three feet off the ground?

At one point in the ascent, we had a clear view if the North Bubble trail that Kate, Jeremy, and I had taken the day before.  We could see some hikers making their way to the summit.  I pointed this out to Jeremy, saying, "That's where we were yesterday."  "Uh-huh," he said, unimpressed, as if to tell his thick-headed grandpa:  "That was yesterday's mountain.  Let's deal with today's mountain."  (Even four-year-olds can be wiser than we think they are.)

At the South Bubble summit – Left: The guys  Right: Kate and Grandpa.  (The mountain beyond the summit is the North Bubble.)

We reached the summit and engaged in the usual picture-taking ritual.  Fortunately, from our previous visit, we knew where to look for Bubble Rock.  One would not think that a boulder of that size would be hard to find, but it is off to the side of the main trail and not visible from the true summit.  We crossed the rocky area toward Bubble Rock and descended to the shelf on which it rested – that is Kate, David, and the boys did.  I was too acutely aware of the open space above a sheer drop to want to be down there with the boys; my acrophobia is such that I get woozy even when I see somebody else standing near the edge of a cliff.  I kept to the higher ground, snapping a photo of the Loop Road far below, while the kids tried to push the boulder off the mountain – without making a sudden exit through the aforementioned gap (which had become, in my imagination, a mile wide).

On our return, I had to take a lot of static from Christopher about how "we could have pushed that big rock off the mountain if you had helped, Grandpa."  What could I say?  It didn't help to tell him that the football team from the regional high school tried and failed to do it every year or to ask why on earth anyone would want to push it off anyway.  Kids may be wiser than we think, but adult logic is something they don't understand.  Nor should they, I suppose.

By the end of our hike, all three boys had acquired walking sticks and were fully entitled to be dubbed trail hobbits, with all the honors pertaining thereunto – one mountain down, a few million more to go.

From left:  Matthew (drinking from canteen), Jeremy, and Christopher.