The Boy Scouts of America (BSA) "Cache to Eagle" series is a National program to highlight past Eagle Scout projects. This is the eighth one for the Garden State Council (GSC)! In addition to all of the typical Scout skills you would expect a Scout to have, an Eagle Scout has to do quite a bit more to earn his rank. This includes:
- Earning 21 Merit Badges - 13 required ones and then another 8 from areas that interest the Scout. The required ones are: First Aid, Citizenship in the Community, Citizenship in the Nation, Citizenship in the World, Communication, Cooking, Personal Fitness, Emergency Preparedness or Lifesaving, Environmental Science or Sustainability, Personal Management, Swimming or Hiking or Cycling, Camping and Family Life.
- Actively serve in a leadership position for 6 months.
- Perform a service project: "While a Life Scout, plan, develop, and give leadership to others in a service project helpful to any religious institution, any school, or your community. (The project should benefit an organization other than Boy Scouting.) The project proposal must be approved by the organization benefiting from the effort, your unit leader and unit committee, and the council or district before you start".
This Multicache is along a +/- 0.5 mile stretch of trail in Buttonwood Park that brings you to five different locations that were part of an Eagle project by a Scout from Troop 36 in Mount Holly. The posted coordinates are for parking. You then need to visit the five locations where the Eagle project placed markers identifying the tree at that location. In addition to the five markers, you will also walk by three benches that were built and installed as part of the project as well. The project was completed on October 31, 2015 and took about 20 volunteers to fabricate, carry and install. Take a minute while you're walking along the trail, or sitting on one of the benches, to consider how much planning, work and effort went into this project and understand that someone under the age of 18 pulled it all together to make it happen. It's pretty amazing what this young man accomplished!
The final can be found at N39 59.ABC W74 45.DDE
To get the coords to the final, go to the five waypoints and the get the following information:
Stage 2 - What type of tree is this?
- Sweetgum: A = 8
- Oak: A = 7
- River Birch: A = 3
Stage 3 - What type of tree is this?
- White Pine: B = 6
- Red Maple: B = 3
- Holly: B= 1
Stage 4 - What type of tree is this?
- Black Cherry: C = 4
- Sequoia: C = 2
- Sassafras: C = 3
Stage 5 - What type of tree is this?
- Willow Oak: D = 7
- Red Maple: D = 5
- Sweetgum: D = 9
Stage 6 - What type of tree is this?
- Black Oak: E = 3
- Black Cherry: E = 0
- Dogwood: E = 9
Checksum:
ABC = 14
DEF = 14