The Outdoor Adventure Club visited the Sugar Shack at Brooksvale Park in Hamden where they make their own maple syrup every year.  We got to listen to some great rangers that taught us about the history of making maple syrup.  Can you imagine that Native Americans used to pull red hot rocks from a fire and drop it into a tree carved out filled with sap to get the sap to boil?  Nowadays the tools are more modern, but the process is still lengthy.  Maple sugar makers tap sugar maple trees and collect the sap.  It takes 40 gallons of sap to make one gallon of maple syrup so obviously they have to collect a lot!  In order to boil the sap at Brooksvale, they use only wood that they have collected around the park.  From start to finish, this process takes several months to complete. 

Of course our favorite part of the trip was getting to try some of their homemade syrup over ice cream! It is definitely worth the wait.