Let’s do a little math problem. We had 19 participants (14 scouts and 5 adults) at the Forbush trail maintenance this month. In two hours, we covered about a mile of trail, clearing brush and dead overhead branches. So that meant that to clear a mile of trail, it was about 38 total hours of work (19 people times 2 hours). So if you went out and did the work by yourself, it would take almost an entire school week (Monday to Friday) working from 9-5!
Think about that for some of the hikes we go on – often they’re about 4 miles each way, so that would be a month (4 weeks) for a single person to clear that much trail!
What can we learn from this math problem?
1) A lot of people put in a lot of time to maintain our trails, both here and in the Sierras.
2) Many hands make for light work – we just spent a morning clearing the trail, but because we had a big group of scouts, we were able to accomplish a lot!
3) Number 3 is left for you to think about. What did you learn about trail maintenance? How much could we accomplish if we had the whole troop out there working (say 40 scouts and 5 adults) working for 3 hours? 25 patrol points to the first scout that tells ASM Weakliem at the next meeting.
