Young workers grooming hiking trails at Acadia

ACADIA NATIONAL PARK — A team of youthful workers are putting their muscles and energy into refurbishing hiking trails in Acadia National Park this summer.

The Acadia Youth Conservation Corps, a team of eight local young people ranging in age from 15 to 18, are lugging lumber, hauling rocks, driving nails, brushing carriage roads, and placing stones for eight weeks.

They represent the first full team of youth conservation corps workers who have left their mark in the park in recent years.

Eden Abbott, a student at Mount Desert Island Regional High School, worked with the others last week to build cribbing along the southern end of the Eagle Lake trail. Explaining that she had opportunities for other types of jobs this summer, she added that the challenge of work in the park had appealed to her.

“There was no other job that was as active as this. I feel like I’m really in good shape now.”

A $25,000 grant from the National Park Foundation, with funds provided by Citibank MasterCard and Visa and Citicorp Diners Club, was awarded this spring as start-up money for this first year of the AYCC.

The private organization Friends of Acadia, which worked to secure that funding, has provided the remainder of the necessary funds.

Duane Pierson, executive director of Friends of Acadia, said Monday that the program would continue each year.

“Everyone’s very impressed by the excellent work they are doing. Their spirit is very high,” he said. “It’s hard to get them off the trail at the end of the day or when it’s raining.”

AYCC crew leader Mike Alley, a Bar Harbor schoolteacher and seasonal trail crew employee, pointed to the quality of work done by his youthful crew over the past four weeks.

“They worked on rock boxes on the South Bubble trail last week. Where the trail had been worn down by people, Mother Nature had made a gullywash. So they went in and built about 180 feet of rock boxes to eliminate that gullywash.

“After last week’s rain, it was beautiful up there,” Alley added. “Everything was right in place. They’d done a great job.”

Working with a youthful crew, Alley added, can be challenging. Alley and his co-crew leader, Jeanne Higgins, must operate all of the power tools.

“I have to remember they’re not familiar with what we’re doing,” Alley said. “I forget that they’re not adults. Many of them have never worked before and have to learn from scratch.”

Adriana Bobinchock of Lamoine, also a high school student on Mount Desert Island, said she was surprised by the amount of work the team had done. “We are treated just like real trail crew members. Anyone who does this has to be prepared to do hard work. The past four weeks have flown by.”

An active program in the park during the 1970s, the Youth Conservation Corps dwindled away when only one person enrolled in 1988. Before that, in the 1960s through part of the 1970s, the Job Corps had done several projects in the park.

Len Bobinchock, chief of operations at Acadia, said that the low rate of pay finally had meant the demise of the program in the late 1980s. This year the $4.25 hourly rate is still considered low, but the $200 payment from Friends of Acadia to each of the participants at the end of the summer drives up that hourly wage to a more acceptable level.

And for this year’s participants, the satisfaction of working in the park outweighs what some of their peers might consider low wages.

Higgins, who began her association with the park as a member of the Youth Conservation Corps years ago, said that experience led to her employment as a seasonal trail worker with the park. “After that first summer, I knew I wanted to come back.”

The oldest member of this summer’s crew, college-bound Loren Hubbard, not only has gained valuable work experience but also has received training and certification as a firefighter. He attended two days of firefighting school and can be called for assistance if fire should break out in the park.

Alley said the presence of another eight people working on trail reconstruction was a boon to the park. During their first week of work, they brushed a trail near Long Pond which hadn’t been groomed in 10 years.

“It’s a never-ending job,” Alley added, “but we’re getting a lot done.”