Happy trails forever

Right in the middle of a long, hot tourist season, Friends of Acadia and Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt announce just about the best news possible for the future of Acadia National Park. A major restoration of the park’s famous trails will begin next year with money raised from the park and by private donors, one very generous private donor in particular.

The park is visited by approximately 3 million people a year, and its foot trails show it. Not that the visitors are mistreating the park, but the number of hikers and bikers have worn down one of the most beautiful places in Maine. And as much as park officials have tried to keep up with the traffic, the trails — 130 miles of them — aren’t what they once were.

Friends of Acadia, a group well known for its sound judgment and sincere interest in the park, last week pledged to match each $1 raised by user fees at the park with more than $2 in private donations. It is the first private involvement in a national park’s use of a program that allows fees to be used to enhance infrastructure. More than just trail improvement, the 10-year plan calls for rebuilding trails, creating five footpaths to neighboring communities, reopening 11 miles of disused trails and keeping all of it in shape year after year. The project is appropriately called Acadia Trails Forever.

It should not, however, take forever to raise the needed money. The park will contribute $4 million; the Friends of Acadia will raise the remaining $9 million. It has been helped immensely in this by Ruth and Tristram Colket Jr., longtime seasonal residents of Bar Harbor and honorary trustees of Friends of Acadia. The Colkets have given $5 million to the cause, a generous expression of their fondness for the park. And in the nothing-to-be-sneezed-at category, Shelby and Gale Davis, summer residents of Northeast Harbor, have given $1 million to the needed total through the Acadia Youth Conservation Corps. With other money already raised, that leaves approximately $2.4 million for the group to raise to complete this worthwhile project.

The contributions make Acadia the first of the nation’s 378 park units to have a privately endowed trail system. The concern and commitment by the Friends of Acadia and their donors have given the project a terrific start. Many contributions on a smaller scale will make it an enduring legacy for Maine.