Staff photo / JOE PHELAN

ROME - Each weekday morning for the past two months, a crew of college-age men and women hike two miles from Watson Pond Road to reach their work site on Round Top Mountain.

Conservation Corps workers and volunteers built this set of stone steps on a trail up the Rome mountain.

By noon, the volunteers are swinging sledge hammers and sweating under bright-orange hard hats as they carve out a 3.5-mile trail along a portion of a 6,000-acre land trust known as Kennebec Highlands.

Belgrade Regional Conservation Alliance and Land for Maine Futures - both nonprofit land-trust organizations - have raised nearly $3 million to secure all but 600 acres of that parcel, which stretches from New Sharon to Mount Vernon. The 600 acres is owned by a blueberry production company that has declined to sell.

According to BRCA Executive Director Mike Little, about 80 percent of the land has been turned over to the state Department of Conservation to maintain and protect the land from future development.

" It's the largest piece of public land in central Maine," Little said.

The trailblazers working on Round Top Mountain are part of the Maine Conservation Corps, which coordinates summer work projects throughout the state in conjunction with AmeriCorps -a federal program that places young people in various community service projects that earn them money for college or job training.

Michael Munson, a 20-year-old student at the University of Maine at Orono, was working with the trail crew Thursday as they put the finishing touches on a rock staircase on the mountain trail. A group of high-schoolers from Hyde School in Bath also helped for the week. Munson said he's learned about trail construction and is pleased with the work he's doing to create a path that will be used for years to come.

As he used dirt to fill spaces between the rock-slab steps, Munson said the Conservation Corps work is making him think about ways to incorporate his experience into a future career." Since doing this work, it's made me rethink what I want to study," Munson said. "I love working with the rocks because they're heavy and they demand a lot of patience."

Just before the volunteers broke for lunch, Tara Yandian, a recent Lawrence High School graduate, sprinkled handfuls of last year's weather-beaten autumn leaves over the freshly constructed staircase. She wanted it to look more natural.

" I'm the artist of the group," she said with a grin. The 18-year-old from Albion said most of her friends are working in pizza places, as she did last summer." By the second week you're already bored," Yandian said of her former job. Her volunteer work in the Kennebec Highlands is helping her earn money for her first semester at the University of Southern Maine this fall.

Crystal Reed, a 24-year-old recent college graduate from Cheyenne, Wyo., leads the Round Top Mountain crew and says she hopes the volunteers take valuable communication and labor skills when the project wraps up in mid-August.

" (They learn) a lot of interpersonal skills and that crosses over into job skills," Reed said. "When people leave here, they're definitely more employable."

Land for Maine Futures supplied a $60,000 grant for the BRCA to cover costs for the Conservation Corps volunteers, to pay contractors for parking lots at trail heads, and to fund a variety of trail-maintenance and erosion mitigation projects.

The BRCA started raising money to purchase the Kennebec Highlands in 1998, when a large timber company wanted to sell some of the land. Since then 19 different owners have sold the land, which includes six undeveloped ponds, several peaks and a network of logging roads and trails.

At one time, the highlands were dotted with farming villages until mill jobs drew families into the valley shortly after the Civil War, according to Little." People used to build on top of these hills because you have a longer frost-free season on top of the mountains," Little said.

The foundations of those villages will remain the only man-made structures in the area that is now set aside for hiking, fishing, snowmobiling and logging.

Brian Alexander, chairman of the Kennebec Highlands Stewardship, mapped out the Round Top Mountain trail and began clearing before the Conservation Corps volunteers arrived in May.

The former owner of Red Oak Sports in Belgrade Lakes said he has probably spent 100 hours determining where the trail should bend around scenic views, interesting rocks and old trees.

" It's been really cool to come into this bare piece of woods and to see it from start to finish," Alexander said.

Danielle Gamiz - 623-3811, Ext. 431dgamiz@centralmaine.com