New Acadia Trail?

I just read in the Bangor News of a new three -mile trail to be constructed between Compass Harbor and Schooner Head. Apparently they %26#39;ll be restoring a previous trail on an already existing trail bed. How cool is that? Do any of you locals know if any part of that existing trail bed is currently walkable? We%26#39;re always looking for new adventures.

New Acadia Trail?

I haven%26#39;t seen the news release.

However, there are two paths which appear on the Pathmakers master map.

-- Schooner Head Road path, about 3.5 miles long (and which must parallel Schooner Head Road---the winter access to the park). I%26#39;ve seen traces of a path/trail on the west , i.e., away from the water, side of the road. The old path apparently crosses the road from the east side to the west side at Bear Brook. Some of it is on private land and Pathmakers notes the there is ';some unknown illegal maintenance.'; How walkable it is, especialy in the summer, I don%26#39;t know. The original path ran from the village to Schooner Head. I imagine that the part north of the Dorr Property paths (that lead from Rte. 3 to Compass Harbor) has been obliterated by private home construction.

North and slightly east of the Schooner Head Road path, there is a short (0.9) mile path termed Old Farm Road/Sols Cliff Path, which is mostly on private land and which is unmarked (that%26#39;s not to say that some long-time residents and visitors don%26#39;t know where it is and how to find it). From the map, it looks like Old Farm/Sols Cliff and Schooner Head were connected at one time.

As I interpret the map, it wouldn%26#39;t be all that difficult to tie the north end of that path to the Dorr Property paths, which I%26#39;m sure that you have walked. I suppose it also is possible simply to stick with the original Schooner Head path, but incorporating Old Farm/Sols Cliff would really resurrect the old system.

That these old paths are partly on private land isn%26#39;t much of a problem---sections of the Great Meadow Loop are on private land.

Thanks, Bayley, for bringing this to the forum.

New Acadia Trail?

Hey Bayley--

I just read the local papers (which come on Thursday).

The trail will be part of the Village Connector Trails program that Friends of Acadia and Acadia N.P. are involved in. It will be built on the original bed. They hope to begin construction late this summer.

The best article is in the Mount Desert Islander (www.mdislander.com). I don%26#39;t know if it has more details than the Bangor paper gave, but the following tinyurl ought to get you right to the article;

http://tinyurl.com/3cn4uq

Thanks for the actual names of the old paths, I had looked on the Pathmakers map and didn%26#39;t see any trails until I looked them up in the reference section by name (boy those numbers on the map are tiny!). I also checked out the article in the Islander, Can%26#39;t wait to get up there in July to check out the area. We%26#39;ve done Compass Harbor and Dorr%26#39;s property but never gone south directly from there (of course we wouldn%26#39;t go on private property but once the trail is ';official'; it will be so neat to see the new area).

Indeed they %26lt;are%26gt; tiny. I recently wrote to Margie Coffin Brown---the project leader for Pathmakers---and asked if there were any plans to release the master maps as larger separates. Alas, the decision to go with the book size was a cost decision (they knew that the numbers were very small) and there are no plans to issue larger separates. So, I%26#39;ll continue on, squinting through my large sheet magnfier. ;--%26gt;

By the way, the companion volume to Pathmakers, ';Acadia Trails Treatment Plan'; is available from the GPO (the park visitor%26#39;s center apparently doesn%26#39;t plan to stock it this year). It is more technical---the specifications for building diffferent types of trail features, etc., but with discussions of how the original construction was done. It does have some great photos of some of the trails as well as the complete details on how they recently re-did five of the trails.

That companion volume to the Pathfinders book sounds interesting also. It%26#39;s good to be reminded that the trails didn%26#39;t just ';magically appear'; and to appreciate all the manpower (and womanpower!) that goes into making them safe and beautiful for us all. Last summer we saw some construction first hand when we hiked the Carry Trail from Eagle Lake to JP. Very impressive!

Apropos of that, there is a very nice picture near the back of the volume which shows Deb Hofford, who was on the 1997 crew, driving 6-inch wedges in to begin splitting a 10-ton slab of granite.

Hi Bayley,

We haven%26#39;t talked for a while. It sounds like you are ready, really ready, for this year%26#39;s trip. It looks like while you are in Acadia, we will be in California (Monterey, Big Sur and Yosemite) this year but we are still on for Acadia in late September.

We%26#39;re thinking of Acadia in July in 2008 (our first in-season visit; we%26#39;ve always visited in September) so we can do the Puffin tour out of Cutler. Maybe we should see if we can pull a T.A. group get together in Acadia in 2008. That would be cool.

Very interesting news about the new trail. We%26#39;ve wandered Compass Harbor (the only time, believe it or not that we got ';lost'; in Acadia; at least as lost as you can get in the Compass Harbor area but that%26#39;s another story) as well as Schooner%26#39;s Head. A connector would be pretty cool.

We%26#39;re now under 50 days until we leave for California. How%26#39;s your countdown going?

Hey Paflyfisher!

Yes, we are always counting down the days to our return to Acadia from the day we leave. Between now and then, we have our son%26#39;s college graduation party and 8 days on Cape Cod, so life is good, if busy!

A TA reunion would be neat. We%26#39;re limited to a July visit due to my husband%26#39;s school schedule. We used to go in late August when the kids were smaller, and each season has it%26#39;s plusses and minuses. However, there is really NO bad time on MDI, even when we were there a few winters ago and it was -14 degrees with a wind chill of -42. At least you%26#39;re THERE!