Lost Trails and Paths of Acadia

The paths the island forgot — walked, recorded and redrawn over the 1942 survey of Acadia National Park and Vicinity. Hundreds of tracks, thousands of field notes, from Beech Cliff to the Black Woods.

Open the Atlas Browse the Library New here? Start here

Welcome

Welcome to Lost Trails and Paths of Acadia

Mount Desert Island is laced with paths that have slipped off the maps: village-society trails from before the park, buckboard and quarry roads, footbridges and stone steps now under moss. This site gathers what is left of them.

Every line here was walked and recorded with a handheld GPS, with a note written at each cairn, junction and cellar hole. The tracks are drawn over the 1942 USGS map of Acadia National Park and Vicinity, so you can see where a path ran then and where it lies today, and read the old guides that first described it. Whether you hike, study local history or are simply curious, we hope you enjoy exploring.

I would like to thank David Goodrich, my hiking companion for two decades and a major contributor to the information on this site; Don Lenahan, author of The Memorials of Acadia National Park and an intrepid hiker; Gary Stellpflug, former head of trails for the National Park Service; Terese Miller, an incredible researcher; and Genie Thorndike, proprietor of Hidden Barn Books.

I would like to thank Dan Foster, developer and owner of ExpertGPS. I have been using ExpertGPS since 1994 to maintain and organize all my GPX files and field photos. In addition, I use Avenza Maps, a great GPX program available on mobile devices.

An independent research project by Les Heilakka, first published as GPS Acadia. Not affiliated with the National Park Service or any government agency.

What you’ll find here

The AtlasThe interactive mapEvery track and field note over the 1942 survey, with search, filters and a choice of modern maps underneath. East SideEast of Somes SoundCadillac, Dorr and Champlain, the White Paths and the Black Woods, area by area, with a sortable list of every track. West SideWest of Somes SoundBeech Mountain, Echo Lake and Canada Cliffs, plus the 39 West Side trails listed in 1915. Off-IslandBeyond Mount DesertSchoodic, Trenton, Blue Hill, Deer Isle, the Frenchman Bay shore and other field work off the island. The LibraryOld guides and mapsThe 1915 Path Guide to read page by page, historic maps, an old-and-new mountain names table, and GPX downloads. AboutHow it was madeHow the trails were found, how the 1942 map was fitted to the ground and how accurate it is, and what the line styles mean.

How to use the site

Pick a starting point. Choose the East Side, West Side or Off-Island to browse by area, or open the Atlas to see the whole island at once.
Find a trail. In the Atlas, type a trail or place name in the search box, narrow to one side or area, and use the type buttons to show or hide lost trails, old roads, park trails and more.
Read the lines. Rust dashes are lost and abandoned trails, ochre dots are old roads and grades, and solid green lines are today’s park trails, shown for reference.
Compare then and now. Lower the 1942 map’s opacity, or press “Compare with today” on a trail, to see a modern topo map, aerial photo or shaded relief underneath.
Open the details. Click any trail for its length, area, history and source file. Zoom in to see field waypoints; click one to read the note written on the spot.
Focus and share. “Show only this” hides everything else; “Show everything” brings it all back. “Copy link” saves a link that opens the same view.
Take the data with you. Download a single trail’s GPX file from its details, or a whole area or side from those pages and the Library.

Heading out? Please read Walk lightly first. A line on this map is history, not an invitation, and many old paths cross private land.

Two sides of one island

Somes Sound, the fjard that nearly splits Mount Desert in half, is our dividing line. Every track and waypoint is filed by the side it lies on. Field work beyond the island has its own Off-Island section.

East of Somes Sound

The East Side

Cadillac, Dorr and Champlain; the White Paths, the Bowl and the Black Woods. The heart of the Village Improvement Association path network.

Old stone footbridge over Cold Brook in the woods near Beech Mountain

West of Somes Sound

The West Side

Beech Mountain, Echo Lake, Canada Cliffs and the Horse Tavern brook — the quieter half, with stonework hidden under moss.

Then & now

Slide back to 1942

The base map is the U.S. Geological Survey’s Topographic Map, Acadia National Park and Vicinity, surveyed in 1934–35 and 1939 and printed in 1942. We fitted the Library of Congress scan to modern coordinates using 34 graticule control points, so a trail on the old sheet lands where it lies on the ground today.

Drag the handle to sweep between the 1942 sheet and today’s USGS topo.

How the map was fitted

Today1942

From the field notebook

Every waypoint carries the note written on the trail. A random handful —

Dry-laid stone abutment of an old footbridge near Horse Tavern brook — Dry-laid stonework, Horse Tavern brook. West Side.

The Library

Read the old guides alongside the tracks

Path guides, guidebooks and maps from the 1870s to the 1940s, the National Park Service’s own trail histories, and every GPX file behind this atlas — gathered on one shelf with links to the original scans.

A Path Guide of Mount Desert Island (1915) — read every page online
Bates, Rand & Jaques, Map of Mount Desert Island (1896, rev. 1901)
Pathmakers, the NPS cultural landscape report (2006)

Visit the Library

Before you go looking

Walk lightly

A lost trail on this map is a piece of history, not a promise of a way through. The park defines abandoned trails as ones it “no longer maps, marks, maintains, or advertises for public use” (Hiking Trails Management Plan).

Stay on durable surfaces and respect closures posted at Acadia’s alerts page.
Don’t build or move cairns — NPS asks hikers not to modify cairns or blazes.
Many old paths cross private land. Ask first, or enjoy them from the map.