The Giant’s Stairs Trail in October 2022. The town has contracted R.A. Webber & Sons Inc., of Cundy’s Harbor, to restore the section of trail from Ocean Street to the Giant’s Stairs monument. (Sherrie Tucker photo)
The Harpswell Select Board has contracted R.A. Webber & Sons Inc., of Cundy’s Harbor, to restore the Giant’s Stairs Trail and parking areas for $8,884.
The board approved the contract on Thursday, Sept. 28. R.A. Webber submitted the lower of two bids in response to the town’s second request for proposals for the project. A request for proposals earlier this year elicited no bids.
The contractor will resurface and reshape approximately 450 feet of trail, from Ocean Street to the monument that commemorates Capt. William Henry Sinnett and Joanna Sinnett’s 1910 gift of the property to the town. Workers will add gravel to address erosion in parking areas, and will trim back poison ivy along the trail, according to town documents.
The goal of the project is to restore the trail to its condition 15 years ago, when the state and town partnered to transform a “narrow foot path filled with poison ivy” into the present-day trail. The Maine Conservation Corps and volunteers widened, stabilized and resurfaced the trail in the 2008 project, according to the town website.
The trail, on the east side of Bailey Island, has become a major attraction for its sweeping views of Casco Bay and open ocean, as well as the unique geological formations that give the site its name.
