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My 13-year-old son is on the cusp of earning his eagle scout award and needs an eagle project to complete to finish off the requirements. He loves hiking, and so is interested in doing a hiking-related project. We live in the Phoenix area (east valley). Any ideas?

Here's an excerpt of the official requirements:

While a Life Scout, a Scout must plan, develop, and give leadership to others in a service project to any religious institution, school, or community. As a demonstration of leadership, the Scout must plan the work, organize the personnel needed, and direct the project to its completion. The service project also may not be performed for a business, be of a commercial nature, or be a fund-raiser. Routine labor, or a job or service normally rendered, should not be considered. An Eagle service project should be of significant magnitude to be special and should represent the candidate's best possible effort.

Trail building and improvement projects have been a common type of Eagle Project. The candidate would need to work with the land manager (for example, forest service, BLM, or a state, county or city park dept.) to set things up and find out what work is desired. There is a lot of preparation and planning that needs to be done before the actual work detail. That's part of how it becomes a leadership project and not, "routine labor."

I know I've seen a few Eagle Projects while hiking around the valley such as the mile markers added to some of the trails in Thunderbird Conservation Park. I believe another added some benches along a trail.

Cleaning up and restoring trailheads would be worthwhile. Some trails are disappearing and need to be cleared and the tread rebuilt. For example, I just completed finding the southern end of the Black Canyon Trail. It is very faint and there is no signage whatsoever for the last mile and a half or so. It will disappear if nothing is done.

If your son would like to do something for the Arizona Trail, I would suggest he contact HAZ member Shawn Redfield (Sredfield) who is, I believe, the trail director.

Another vote for trail work/maintenance. Many of the trails in the Mazatzals and Superstitions have received sparse to no maintenance for decades or more. The trails that make up the AZ trail are also a worthy cause, though not sure if that could qualify as his project.

@rcorfmanThank you for the referral.

We try to keep a list, but it seems to change frequently. Here are a few items from the last version:

There is about half a mile of heavy brush cutting to be done near Pine, as part of the realignment there. This would be quite a challenge, but it is a huge hurdle to finishing that project. Volunteers from outside the scouting community could easily be recruited to augment the scouts, and ATA will provide the tools and whatever direction is appropriate.

Trailhead and short distance of trail clean up at American Flag TH near Oracle. Brush removal around sign and generally clean up the area, remove old water bars (heavy planks, rubber mats) and replace with stone or other natural materials, blend into natural environment. 5-6 workers could do this in a day or two, depending on how far in from the TH the project goes.

Trail work of different kinds north of Sunflower near Cross F TH. ATA steward can work with the scout to identify what is a "project."

We would be happy to discuss these or other potential projects on the AZT. See http://www.aztrail.org/volunteers/scouts.html

@Sredfield
Nothing in the LF Ranch area? ;)

Don't do the ATA (it is very worthy, I'm a 16 year member) so do that if he likes the idea; it's mainstream.

I like nonot's idea (I wonder why ) trail work deep in the Mazatzals - be different, intriguing and non-mainstream.