ABANDONED TRAILS OF ACADIA NATIONAL PARK: THE LOST RUDOLPH BRUNNOW WORK CREW TRAIL

I can't find anyplace where this trail is labeled, and when I first listed it some contacted me and said this was actually the Orange and Black Trail, which if you look at old maps, the trail appears to be a quick access route to the Orange and Black trail, used for perhaps a short cut for workers who were constructing the Orange and Black trail or working on the nearby Precipice and Great Cave Loop. . I simply have called this the Lost Rudolph Brunnow Trail. Take a moment and study the old map below, I have outlined this lost trail in red. Notice the white Path is a separate path that crosses this path we found. Now once again study the old map and notice that this lost path, along with the Great Cave Loop, are both marked lighter than the other trails on the map. I don't know why these two paths are marked lighter, but they are.

So we have now come up with two much easier ways to locate the area this lost trail is in. Begin at the Orange and Black trail post located before you get to the precipice parking area. There is a storm drain next to the trail marker, that is storm drain one. Now walk in the same direction as the traffic until you reach storm drain four, that is where you enter the woods, to the left side of the storm drain. A short ways away is a very huge boulder with a split across it.
The second way to locate the area of the lost path is by GPS, storm drain four is located at
N 44 21.172 W 068 11.277
base of the stone gully is located at
N 44 21.183 W 068 11.306
When you look up toward the top of the gully, you will see a line of white birch, the stone steps run along the back side of those white birch before turning the corner along larger steps.

One of many storm drains along side of the Park Loop Road

The stone gully is located straight in and slightly to the right, it is the only gully in that area. So why is the stone steps higher up easy to see once your at the top of the gully, steps to the right, and the path up the gully is not so easy to see? So once we located this lighter marked trail, finding out how this section of trail became abandoned took a bit longer to uncover, but thanks to old newspaper articles, in time we did just that. As it turns out, the Orange and Black Trail has had a long history of being plagued by rock slides, and as we discovered in one old article, every few years crews have to return to the trail and rebuilt sections of it, which has resulted in several legs of the trail being abandoned, this section we uncovered we now believe is one of those abandoned sections of trail. Another old article written many years later stated rock slides continue to plaque the Orange and Black trail.
Than in 2006 the Big One struck, an earthquake that sent people hurrying out of downtown shops, with a magnitude of 4.2. Now that may seem a walk in the park to people who live in places prone to earthquakes, but here on the island, that was huge. I was walking down Cottage Street when it hit and just knew what it was. It was one or two days later when me and my oldest son were free climbing up the side of Cadillac Mountain when a good size after shook hit, we turned around and called it a day. . The epicenter of the earthquake was located in the Atlantic Ocean just off Schooner Head, on the eastern side of the park. Damage appeared to be limited to rocks falling on the Park Loop Road, which re-opened on Tuesday afternoon after a brief closure, and some park trails (see Temporary Closures for a list of closed trails).
Trails that were shut down due to earthquake damage at the time included most of the trails found on Champlain Mountain, including the precipice, the Orange and Black Trail and the Bear Brook Trail (on some maps called the Champlain North Ridge Trail).

From road go straight in short ways until you reach rocky gully slightly to the right running upward.

Once you reach the top of the gully look to your right and you will see stone steps. Unlike the much larger stone steps leading up Dorr Mountain, these are smaller stone steps which run between the mountain side and a row of white birch. As the steps approach a corner, the stone steps become larger. The path turns left higher up, and cuts back in the direction you came from but at a higher level. The trail runs straight ahead before coming to thick brush, here the trail turned upward, and just a short ways ahead is the official Orange and black trail. We believe there was once stone steps leading to the official path ahead and the Park Service removed them so people hiking the Orange and Black path would not see the other path.

Rocky Gully - at top, look right for stone steps

To locate this trail, drive, bike, hike or take the free Island Explorer bus to the Precipice parking lot. If using the bus, make certain you let the driver know you want to get off at the Precipice parking lot. He may tell you the trail there is closed due to endangered Falcons nesting along the Precipice, just tell you to let you off there.

Now walk along the Park Loop Road, going against the traffic, until you reach the Orange and Black Trail Head and follow the directions I have given earlier in this post.

UPDATE

From the moment I discovered this long lost trail, my gut instincts told me this trail was built not as a hiking trail, but as a supply trail as a quick and easy access to both the Orange and black trail and the nearby Precipice Trail, and a piece I came across bears this out. In the book Trails Of History I came across the following; "As the Orange and Black Path descended below the cliff over which Brunnow hoped to scale, he built a second connecting path across the freshwater meadow (todays Bliss Field) . A rock staircase, currently abandoned, leads up to the Orange and Black Path. This short trail provided quicker access to the business at hand, the building of the Precipice Trail."

What is described there is exactly what my youngest son located, and what we came to label the Lost Rudolph Brunnow trail. This is a short direct trail to the Orange and Black Trail, with a stone stair case, as described. The trail also cuts about three froths of the hiking time off of the official Orange and black Trail, making access to the upper area of the Precipice Trail muck quicker. This also explains why on some old maps you actually see this trail, unmarked and outlined lighter than the other trails, it was never meant to be a hiking trail, but a trail used by the work crew who used it to carry on their work on the upper section of the Precipice Trail.