# Math Help - Find Length of Mountain Trail

1. ## Find Length of Mountain Trail

A straight trail with an inclination of 17 degrees leads a hotel at an of elevation of 9000 feet to a mountain lake at an elevation of 11,200 feet. What is the length of the trail?

2. Originally Posted by magentarita
A straight trail with an inclination of 17 degrees leaves a hotel at an elevation of 9000 feet to a mountain lake at an elevation of 11,200 feet. What is the length of the trail?
I changed your wording just a tad. I hope this is what you mean.

This just sounds like a classic case of right triangle trigonomety. From the hotel, the rise to 11,200 ft. would be 2200 ft. With an inclination of 17 degrees we should have:

$\sin 17=\frac{2200}{x}$

where x is the length of the trail in feet.

3. ## I can..........

Originally Posted by masters
I changed your wording just a tad. I hope this is what you mean.

This just sounds like a classic case of right triangle trigonomety. From the hotel, the rise to 11,200 ft. would be 2200 ft. With an inclination of 17 degrees we should have:

$\sin 17=\frac{2200}{x}$

where x is the length of the trail in feet.
I can take it from here.

Thanks