ACADIA NATIONAL PARK – Elizabeth Bright never got tired of cross-country skiing on the winding trails of Mount Desert Island, even when she was more than 80 years old.

That’s why her family decided to make a $255,000 gift in her memory to the nonprofit group Friends of Acadia to create a fund that will purchase state-of-the-art grooming equipment to maintain miles of the trails that Bright, known by everyone as Leila, loved so much, her son said Tuesday.

“It was something that she liked to do in the winter,” James Bright of Northeast Harbor said of his mother’s devotion to skiing even into her ninth decade. “She was pretty tough for someone who was 5’2″.”

About $200,000 of the gift will be placed into an interest-generating fund while $50,000 will be used right away to purchase equipment including a low-pollution snow-grooming machine, according to Friends of Acadia President Ken Olson.

“We’re giving the machinery to the park,” he said. “The permanent fund will pay for annual upkeep of equipment, fuel and costs.”

Officials hope that the new equipment will allow them to expand the 31-mile network of groomed cross-country ski trails this season by opening up trails on the eastern side of Eagle Lake, near Witch Hole and Aunt Betty Pond.

Bright would be pleased about the improved ski trails but embarrassed about the attention the gift is getting, her son said.

“She helped a lot of people over the years, but never looked for recognition,” Bright said. “She was pretty quiet about it.”

The private philanthropist raised 10 children with her investment-banker husband, Stanley. The couple split their time between Rosemont, Pa., Islesford and Northeast Harbor. When the couple moved to Maine full-time in the 1970s, Bright relished all kinds of outdoor activities such as hiking and sailing as well as cross-country skiing, giving it up not long before her death in May at 84.

“Leila Bright had always been just a real enthusiastic cross-country skier,” said Stan MacDonald, chairman of the Acadia Winter Trails Association.

He remembered that after snowstorms, Bright would wait impatiently for the island’s first trail groomer to break tracks and then follow him.

Olson was enthusiastic about the endowment, saying that not many people pay attention to Acadia’s winter season.

“Most people think of the park as primarily a two- or three-season area,” he said. “It’s nice that the Brights have thought of the use of this beautiful place at an exceptionally beautiful time of year, when it’s rarely visited.”

James Bright said his mother loved the park in all seasons.

“I’d say she was in the park almost every day,” he said simply.