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8th Grade Trail Work with KELT


You know that wet spot on the Whiskeag Trail that fires mud up into the undercarriage of your bike every spring and fall as you blast through it? The one that is deceptively deep and shows up in an otherwise dry section of trail, almost always throwing you off your line for the next technical section? Well, say goodbye to it!

Beginning in 2016, Bath Middle School began a collaboration with the Kennebec Estuary Land Trust to perform maintenance and improvements on one of their iconic local trails, The Whiskeag. The Whiskeag is a multi-use trail that weaves its way through a corridor of green space from near downtown Bath to the northern end of land in Merrymeeting Bay. It's popular with hikers, bikers, hunters, snowshoers and skiers, but is widely unknown to kids in Bath. We figured that getting middle school students out there to do work would help the trail, acquaint the students with this precious resource, and give the kids the chance to work on a cooperative project. This week's project was taking care of some chronic wet spots.

The first step was carrying the lumber  and all the tools to the sites of the bridges. Many hands make light work, so with our group of twelve enthusiastic eighth graders, we were able to accomplish this task quickly.



Cheri Bruneault and Charlotte Thompson from KELT worked with us to lay out the basic frames of the bridges. Large footers elevate the stringers that are nailed to them, then  decking is screwed onto the top. 



Of course, it is important to measure before you begin construction. Students had to use a tape measure to decide where to begin the sloping ends of the bridges. Then they used a hand saw to create the ramp cuts.

Driving the spikes through the stringers with a mini-sledge hammer and learning to sink screws without stripping them were popular activities. It was great to see the kids so engaged in the project and eager to help one another out. It was another reminder for me that learning happens everywhere. When an activity is engaging, it creates lasting memories of learning. A number of hikers passed us on the trail and thanked us for building the bridges -- a real time lesson in stewardship, service and civic engagement. I have no doubt that the experience of building these bridges will be something the kids remember and take pride in for years to come.

I used some of our time together to explain the Specialized Foundation's Riding For Focus programming that will be starting up soon at our school. They were psyched to contemplate riding on the Whiskeag Trail! I walked them through some of the technical lines with a play-by-play description of how to ride them cleanly. 

I am really enjoying getting to work with this crew of 8th graders from the Baxter House. I didn't know most of the kids very well before this week, and it's great to hear about their interests and backgrounds. They are beekeepers, horseback riders, scientists, athletes, travelers and musicians. One thing they all have in common however, is that most of them haven't spent much time on the Whiskeag Trail before.

I'll bet that's about to change.


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