On Friday afternoons after school, while many young children are eager to get home for the weekend, a group of dedicated Evergreen students in grades 2 through 5 called The Trailblazers worked together to blaze the Peppermint Trail. Under the guidance of Lower School Science Teacher Katie Cahoon, their mission during the 2022-2023 school year was to clear an overgrown trail to the pond. This year, in the fall of 2023 the group resumed their work to complete the trail and add blazes. Hear from students about their work on the trail in our original post: Students Work Together to Help Others.

Students complete the Peppermint Trail

By Katie Cahoon, Lower School Science Teacher

For the fall of 2023, Evergreen students revisited the work they did on the Peppermint Trail. During our previous season, we made some goals for the trail, the top priority being to make trail signage so everyone could find their way.

Designing the blazes

First, we talked about possible designs, tried out a few on paper, and then decided on a final peppermint symbol of red and white. Next, we got help from Señora Dolphin with the allocation of pine wood crosscuts. The Trailblazers worked together to draw out the design and then paint. This took several sessions with over 40 pieces to paint!

Fun Fact: the Peppermint Trail was named after one of the Trailblazers said “peppermint trail” instead of “permanent trail” in their presentation to the school!

Marking the Peppermint Trail

It took until our final two classes to finish signage. On these occasions, with it getting dark so early, we hurried out into the woods to put up our new blazes. As a diplomatic group, we decided where to put each sign. We didn’t want to put them too close together or too far apart. We also had to consider the angle and height that would be most visible to the sightlines of various ages. The group often worked together to get the signs up. Others noticed the trails had some overgrowth and worked to clear the trail ahead of us as we went.

The last blaze was put up as the sun was setting on our final day of Trailblazers 2023. I was not sure if we would get it done, but the tenacious group worked collaboratively and effectively. They were very excited to complete the work and we took some fun selfies before we had to go clean up.

Thank you, Trailblazers, for your service to our community!