During our Wintersession in 2022, a group of students endeavored to map out the locations of all of the maple trees on Trinity-Pawling’s campus in an attempt to determine the viability of maple syrup production on campus. The boys mapped out over 450 available taps, and, after visiting several local maple farms, and making a small amount of their own syrup, the students concluded that making maple syrup at Trinity-Pawling was not only possible, but an excellent idea!
Fast forwarding two years to our most recent Wintersession, the School approved a group of freshmen and sophomores to build a maple sugaring “shack” and to install a sugarbush (a stand of maple trees that is used for maple syrup) on campus. After visiting area maple farms to learn about the necessary infrastructure for the production of syrup, the students built a sugar shack from the ground up, located near the Pond House at the upper pond. The students were able to use the sawmill located on campus to mill the siding out of downed ash trees rather than purchase lumber. They also put together an evaporator, which is the perfect size for the 50 taps that the students installed in the trees above the house. To collect the sap, the students are using a combination of traditional buckets and tubing, having learned the benefits and drawbacks of both systems.
In the last few weeks, the students have made about a gallon of syrup. They look forward to starting to evaporate when the season begins next year, as the system will be ready to go from the outset of the season. The goal will be to make enough syrup to host a festive annual “pancake night” in the Pond House, perhaps as one way to celebrate the end of the Winter Term and the coming of spring. Though we have elected to begin with a very manageable 50 taps, there is student interest in future expansion of the program to utilize a greater percentage of the trees available on our campus, not only to generate more syrup but to also have enough to experiment with making other products, such as maple cotton candy, maple candies, or maple cream.
Through much hard work and learning, this year’s Maple Sugaring Winter Project group has definitely achieved the sweetest results on record!
by Josh Frost ’04