DUCK BROOK BRIDGE

The Tallest and Most Grandiose Bridge:

With three arches and four turret-style viewing platforms at the top, Duck Brook Bridge is the tallest and arguably the most grandiose and ornate carriage-road bridge, towering over New Mills Meadow Pond and Duck Brook beneath it. Completed in 1929, it was also the most expensive Rockefeller bridge to construct. The view from the top of the bridge is majestic with stairs providing access to the brook below. This is a carriage-road bridge to experience!

Duck Brook Bridge is located on the southeastern corner of the Witch Hole Pond carriage road loop on the north side of Mount Desert Island, somewhat isolated from the majority of the other carriage road bridges. If you are biking or hiking the carriage roads, you can access the bridge from the Hulls Cove Visitor Center to the north or from the Eagle Lake parking area to the south; both routes are roughly two miles to get to the bridge. (See map to navigate the Paradise Hill loop and Witch Hole Pond loop.) Alternatively, you can drive close to the bridge via the Duck Brook Road located at the northeast corner of Eagle Lake, but parking is extremely limited. (Although older maps show the road continuing east to the Park Loop Road, the road is actually closed to vehicles beyond Duck Brook Bridge.)

To navigate the trails and carriage roads of Acadia and find the classic stone bridges, get a copy of the wonderful Map Adventures Acadia National Park Trail Map or Diane Abrell's Carriage Roads of Acadia: A Pocket Guide. And for more in depth information on the construction and history of the bridges, please see Robert Thayer's Acadia's Carriage Roads book.