Hike #918; Elk Neck MD to Newark DE

Hike #918; Elk Neck MD to Newark DE

2/27/16 Elk Neck MD to Newark DE with James Quinn, Serious Sean Dougherty, Neil Washington, Dan Asnis, Russ ?, and Amy Davis.

This next hike was a point to point, returning once again to the Mason-Dixon Trail. I really don’t have many hikes left to complete the entire trail, and I really want to push to get a few of these longer ones finished.

Mason-Dixon Trail in Elk Neck State Forest

I had been working on this series since I first reached the end of the trail on the east side, where it is co-aligned with the Brandywine Trail. After doing that, and loving it, I decided to do a full on hike and covered the section from eastern terminus to White Clay Creek Preserve on the PA/DE border. It was just as crazy and diverse as so many of the other trails I’d loved, and so I had to do more. I also covered a section as a loop at White Clay Creek, and another bit of it as a loop out of Newark DE.
Jillane and I had backpacked the Conestoga Trail to this trail as well, and then followed it south to Havre De Grace, MD, then east to Perryville MD, and on another trip we followed it north from Otter Creek PA to Black Gut area. We’d passed the western terminus on the Appalachian Trail, and I brought a group out to do the missing section between Lock 12 on Susquehanna Tidewater Canal and Otter Creek.

Official Sept. 11th National Memorial Trail.

However, there is another reason for my doing this at this time.
I have been doing the September 11th National Memorial Trail as a series, and have agreed to do one section per month until it was done.
I find myself as late faced with a dilemma. The route of the trail is such that many members of Metrotrails have already expressed they would not be interested in doing this entire series, and for understandable reason. I’d had my own reservations about some of the route myself.
I only want what is best for the trail and for all of it’s users, but how can I help to express this without coming across like some know-it-all jerk? The plan caters mainly to cyclists and is at the current time very unattractive looking to hikers, and there is no one really representing that contingent. There is also no one other than me who has had feet on the ground in all locations in question.
I had been on the steering committee in New Jersey, but I felt strongly that our hands were tied with a very poor route in Pennsylvania. When I looked at the rest of Pennsylvania, I found that if we do the series, we will spend 27 full days of doing nothing but walking paved roads. What’s worse, is more than half of these road walks are unnecessary because there are existing trails in place. The route also ignores huge places of national significance I felt could not be left out.
When I looked at the entire trail, with Maryland and Delaware included, I found that it would be a minimum of forty full days of just walking pavement, but so many can be eliminated, and some of them almost entirely. One such place just happened to be a Mason-Dixon Trail bit I was missing.

The same map with the Mason-Dixon Trail shown in light blue.

The map shown with blue to the right notes the location of the Mason-Dixon Trail, almost entirely off road, with a few sections here or there of road walking. It is by no means perfect, but almost all of the designated route in this area is walking ONLY paved roads, many of them four lane roads, horribly ugly, and with little or no shoulder. At the very least, there should be a hikers’ route and a cyclists route. If I were to lead a series of hikes on the designated route across Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Delaware, I would run Metrotrails into the ground because no one would sign up. Much of the group has already told me they would not attend the hikes west of New Jersey with the designated route. Therefore, I have to do it my own way.
On countless occasions, the 911 Trail bypasses incredibly significant points, such as the National Canal Museum, the first transportation tunnel in the US, no less than a dozen historic iron furnaces, and so much more. On this hike alone, the route bypasses historic iron mines, an historic black school area, two War of 1812 fort sites, and the only Revolutionary War battle site to be fought in the state of Delaware....all in favor of remaining on paved roads.
It’s always been my duty, I’ve felt, to promote these historic places, but now I feel it even more so. The Mason-Dixon Trail System is in need of more volunteers and members to keep this great trail going, and the inclusion of this particular section would easily be mutually beneficial to both causes.

Elk Neck State Forest

For this hike, we met at our end point, Folk Memorial Park in Newark, Delaware, and shuttled with two cars to the starting point in Elk Neck State Forest, off of Irishtown Road. There was a good parking area, rather obscure, at a spot on a short driveway on the south side. From that point, there was a Lighthouse Trail that went into the woods from a dirt road. A good sign noted that this was also the way to the Mason Dixon Trail. We made our way onto that route from the start.
We had newcomers Russ and Amy out on this one, who had found the posting through Meetup or Facebook. I was happy that people actually showed up this far south.

Along the trail

The trail we were following was marked with white lighthouse things, as well as blue markers on the trees, but they were nailed on. This was later called Elk Neck Trail. We followed this a short while and came to an intersection with another blue blazed trail, but here the Mason Dixon Trail tags were found. Unlike other parts of Mason Dixon Trail, the blue blazes were all hammered onto the trees. They used to mark this section with both blue and white paint marks (because they had to differentiate with paint that private land owners marked their land with adjacent to the state forest).
It was great to be back on this trail and doing another section. It had been so long since I’d tried to get more of it done.
The route was really pretty, weaving through the woods, sometimes a bit muddy from the rain. We crossed little foot bridges over small tributaries, and the hills were far larger than I’d expected they would be on the Elk Neck Peninsula. This entire area was sort of like the Pine Barrens of southern NJ, but there was just too much elevation.

Stump

We weaved around quite a lot, crossed more tributaries, and a sandy road. There were several species of pine tree which was interesting. I am pretty sure I saw Virginia Pines, but there were also Pitch Pines, and what I believe were both Loblolly Pines and Shortleaf Pines. Their cones were different shapes.
We continued on the trail and it emerged on another dirt road, then followed it to the east a bit. We continued on it to where we hit a paved road at a religious camp place, on Huminski Road. We followed this road to it’s end, and the trail turned right to follow Old Elk Neck Road. This was a rather busy one, so we kept to the side to Jones Chapel Road.

Fort Defiance marker

The trail turned left here, and we were at first able to walk just into the woods parallel with it. We then just had to remain on the road to it’s end, at Oldfield Point Road, near the former site of Fort Defiance, from the War of 1812. There was only an historic marker to note the location of this as we walked on.
This was also a rather busy road, but we didn’t have too much trouble. We followed the road ahead and across the Little Elk Creek, an obviously tidal river that reminded us of a lot of the NJ Perimeter hikes we had done. We continued to Landing Lane and turned left, then headed to a deli on the right where we took a brief break.

We moved ahead up Landing Lane a bit more and stopped at another store on the corner for some drinks before moving on. I chatted with a guy who was stopping in for beer about the area, and he liked my suit.
We crossed over Rt 40, and the trail remained on the roads to the Main Street in Elkton MD.
Visiting Elkton was sort of a point of interest for me in my family history.
Most people don’t think about Elkton MD really at all. Who ever considers it? I had never read about it until reading into the Mason Dixon Trail...but I should have known about it.
My grandfather told me that when my great Grandfather, George Prall Allen married my great grandmother, Gladys Snyder, they ran off to do it in Elkton.

Old Elkton postcard

One might as “Why Elkton? Of all places?”. Well, Elkton was a hot spot for marriages in the 1930s. Today, people run off to Las Vegas or something to elope, but back then, people could get married very easily and quickly. They’d have their marriage license and be done with it. And that’s when my great grandparents went through with it. They did not have the support of my great great grandfather, Edwin Allen, so they had to run off.

When we were driving in the morning, Serious Sean commented that his parents had also gone to Elkton! I can’t help but wonder if they were all married at the same chapel, as one of the stipulations was that it had to be a church wedding.
The Elkton marriages continued like crazy until 1938 when the state imposed a 48 hour period to receive a marriage license. It’s just an interesting tidbit of history, and something of a history for our families.
Mason Dixon Trail took us down the main street for a bit, then turned right when we got to Bridge Street. The trail continued down to Howard Street and turned briefly, then went right and followed the shore of the Big Elk Creek.

Downtown Elkton entrance

This was likely to be the only place we would find any kind of food, so we stopped off to have some lunch here. The trail went out parallel with the creek, but it had recently flooded. There was a surface layer of gross mud over the grass that made it harder to walk. We all stopped under a pavilion before dispersing to town for food.

Mason Dixon Trail across ball fields

We all headed to a pizza place on the corner (except Amy); it was okay, but it tasted like Elios. It really didn’t look very good either, but it must just be one of those regional oddities.
We came back to the pavilion and hung out a bit more, waiting for Dan and Neil to come back. I was glad we went to look at the downtown at least.
While there, some guys all walked by, one of them very slowly with a brace on his one knee. He told us that they’d gotten washed out, and I realized they must have been homeless living in some shelters along the river. He complained that he’d muddied his church shoes. The guys spoke with a pretty thick accent.
He told us he used to hike, and that he used to be a climber, until he fell one time during a climb, tumbled, and landed on his knees. The one knee was totally crushed and he’d been struggling since.

Mason Dixon Trail at Eder Park

He said goodbye to us and we too moved on; the trail passed through ball fields at Eder Park, past the dugout and then into a section of woods with tons of soft mud. We then crossed the Big Elk Creek on a foot bridge. This area was far muddier than I’d ever anticipated it would have been. We took a break on the bridge to try to wipe the mud off the bottoms of our shoes, which were getting extremely heavy with the stuff they were picking up. Once on the other side of the bridge, the trail turned left, briefly onto a running track around the fields in Meadow Park, then to the left to more closely follow the Big Elk Creek. This too was a muddy mess, but not as bad.

Big Elk Creek footbridge

We continued along the shore of the creek for a while, and then came to another small foot bridge which took us out to Delaware Avenue. The bridge had lots of muck on it. We crossed over, but then there was no sign of the trail on the other side. The guide, which I was carrying in my inside jacket pocket, said basically just follow the creek up stream.

Running track on Mason Dixon Trail

We continued to follow the creek through the woods, and I started seeing some of the blue blazes. It was obvious no one is maintaining this section. Everyone must follow the grass and access road off to the right in Hatchery Park. We soon did emerge into this park and then skirted a pond above the Big Elk Creek.
The creek through this area was really stunningly beautiful. It would probably have some good swimming spots. We continued along the pond and then made our way into a section of woods heading gradually up hill. That led us out to a fish hatchery area.

Big Elk Creek

The familiar looking trout propogation ponds were pretty big, and the trail turned right to skirt the entire area. We followed around the edge of the ponds to the northeast side, and then another footpath went off to the right, heading again up hill to another level. At the top, there was another small pond, and the trail turned right along the berm into some more heavy woods. We followed this, and nearly missed a turn where the trail turns away from an ATV path, and leads more toward the middle of the swath of woods. We continued this way a bit, then cut to the left on a long abandoned old roadway heading gradually up hill.

Fish propogation

The blazes on this section were rather sporadic, and the color of them had faded to a much lighter blue. Still, we managed to follow it along, and I kept looking back to make sure we didn’t miss any turns.
The trail had an opening and came out to a retention pond off of a development. I didn’t see any further blazes from there, but even the guide seemed to show that this was the right way. The homes were actually pretty new, and the USGS map onto which the official trail guide was superimposed did not yet include it. I wondered if they had changed it somewhat through here.

MD Trail on old woods road

We walked parallel with the pond, passed a “no trespassing” sign, and then emerged onto Colonial Drive. A nice couple was walking the road at this time, and asked what we were doing. They weren’t suspicious at all, but rather quite interested. The woman told me that the blue blazed trail continued up hill through the woods behind all of the houses. I had no idea about this, and it wasn’t on the trail updates, but trusted that there must be something, so we all went back along the retention pond and into the woods. Serious Sean went ahead scouting, but also did not find anything. The woods road ended, and ATV path that continued from there seemed to peter out. It turned out the trail did follow the route we were using after all. We turned right on Colonial, then left on Melbourne Blvd.

We followed this road to Village Road and turned right. There were blazes on the curbs of the sidewalks as we moved along. Most of the houses for a time were very large mansion type homes, well to do families.
Then, we came across a shopping car along the road. Of course, we always have to grab these up. Serious Sean started pushing it, and we all put our backpacks into the thing. I started into the British accent talking about the “Supermarket trolleys what people ‘as discarted because they came from the broken homes” like I’d heard on the Jerry Jackson cartoons. The character of the development also changed as we passed the cart. It was now more run down, sort of town houses, and there was litter everywhere.

Supermarket trolley!

We passed a large above ground water tower with “Elkton” written on it, and James and I met a very friendly big orange cat that just loved the attention that we gave it. It seemed like it wanted to follow us after we spent about five minutes petting it. It turned around before we could get too far though.
When we got to the end of Village, we turned right on Delancy Road, Rt 781 for a bit on the sidewalk. The trail wasn’t blazed all that well in this area, but we came to the edge of a house where we could see the turn blazes going along a yard just past some sort of car work place. It got pretty overgrown quick, and we cut to the right through some woods to the back yards of a couple of houses.

We then cut back through again to a mowed area out behind the business we had passed before, and we could see some of the trail marker posts into the weeds a bit, obscure but there. We continued to follow a grassy swath along a gas utility line, and skirted the backs of homes off of a cul de sac known as Tansom Ct. We then skirted the right side of a retention pond. There was a pipe and concrete culvert thing at the end. Serious Sean and Neil ended up going through the thing and back. The turn blazes on it were faded, but obvious. We turned left along the retention pond, but there was no turn beyond. We seemed to lose the blazes altogether here.
We just remained on the edge out to the cul de sac at the end of Thatch Court, from which point another cleared gas utility went into woods. We turned right on it, and then got back to clear power lines and discernible Mason Dixon Trail blazes.

The Maryland-Delaware state line looking east.

We soon passed beneath a power line that went north/south, which was all there was to denote the state boundary. We crossed over from Maryland into Delaware (the first time I’d ever crossed between these two states hiking) and continued on the Mason Dixon Trail under the power line to the east.

Retention pond along Mason Dixon Trail

The trail took us across Rosetree Lane, and then followed a brief paved drive section before turning off onto an unpaved pathway along the utility line. We passed a retention pond and continued east on the pipeline right of way, which was overall easy, but at times a bit muddy.
The next obstacle we came across was in the form of a creek crossing without a bridge.
It was a western branch of something called Muddy Run. It crossed over the utility line at a perfect straight line, certainly cut when the utility was developed through there. I finally just said ‘screw it’ and walked through, while the others looked for easier crossing just downstream from where the maintenance road is.

West fork of Muddy Run

Russ was going to put a branch into the brook to cross over, and a guy who’s house was partially under the clearing, and right on the shore of the creek hollered out not to put anything in the stream. Russ shouted back that he’d take it out when he got across. The guy just nodded his head. Kind of strange!
We all got across and continued on rather easily, and then reached Pleasant Valley Road.
The trail didn’t continue on a muddy access road from here. It turned right briefly on the road, then left along a mowed swath beside a large commercial box building. It was nice and easy skirting this property in the grass.

MD Trail along a commercial building

We reached a picnic bench sitting out on the trail route before a ninety degree angle left turn on the power line right of way, and sat down to take a short break.
We then continued on along the trail now heading north on the power line. We cross over McCormick Blvd, then continued straight on the power line which soon reached the crossing of the main branch of the Muddy Run. This one was much easier to cross than the other one without getting wet. It turned at an angle at the crossing point, and was deeply eroded down into the line, but the lack of muddy surface and existence of good hard rocks made it a good crossing spot.

Muddy Run crossing

We all got across and continued on the power line to the north, then followed it around another ninety degree bend to the north. We continued on the power line for a little farther than we should have, because the trail turns off of it into the woods to the left along the way.
When I realized I wasn’t seeing any more blazes, we all turned back and watched the edge of the power line until I saw them. We then headed into some muddy woods on a well marked, if not overly marked footpath. We had to skip around some puddles and such, but we were able to follow it without too much trouble to the north, where it came out at a playground.

James and a sign

There was a sign reading “Thornwood Residents and Guests only”, though there most certainly must be permission for Mason Dixon Trail hikers to go through. Usually the guide will mention specifically to ignore signs like this.
We stopped for a break at the playground for a bit, and James swung on the swingset. Serious Sean and Neil climbed a short rock climbing wall section before we moved onward. The trail was marked from the playground to the right onto a road called Four Seasons Parkway heading east.
We soon turned left on Briarcliffe Court, then left again on Hazlewood Drive, and then right on Beaumin Drive. This road led to a dead end, at which point we continued straight through a cut in a hedge road.

Swinger

The cut through took us out to Old Baltimore Pike. The Mason Dixon Trail was marked along the highway to the right a short distance to a left turn into the Iron Hill Museum, but I could see there was a trail access directly across the street. We walked across onto that instead. It worked out well because there was a good trail leading parallel with the road, just into the woods. We followed that out to the museum.
Just before reaching the museum, there was a fenced off foundation on the right side with an historic marker. This was the original Iron Hill School. This was a school intended for African American students from 1880 until 1915. Apparently the foundation was the original.

Iron Hill School

Just past this site was the museum, a later school constructed by P. S. duPont as part of a state wide African American education program in 1923. The original school house was sold at auction, moved to another location and used as a private home for many years later.
The historic black school is just another spot on this trail that I thought should be a part of the 911 Trail. We continued past the school and into the woods with the Mason Dixon Trail co-aligned on the Iron Mine Trail. This section of trail was a lovely footpath through the woods, and out around several old iron mine pits. Side trails with wooden walkways lead all down and around through these pits to give a closer look.

Iron mines in Iron Hill Park

We continued past the mines, through the woods and out to a paved road through Iron Hill Park, a county park. The trail remained on the right side of the road for a while, heading gradually up hill.
The area here is of historic significance also because it is the site of the only Revolutionary War battle to occur on state of Delaware soil. The Continental Army engaged the British at Iron Hill and areas east toward Purgatory Swamp in September of 1777, but lost. It is often known as the “Battle of Cooch’s Bridge”, but was known as “Battle of Iron Hill” to American participants. The British encamped here shortly, then marched north through Newark.
The Mason Dixon Trail continues north through Newark, and then passes along the Brandywine River, where the two armies engaged each other again, ironically on September 11th, 1777.

Yost memorial

The fact that so much national history is encompassed in this trail is one of the arguments I feel is strong to incorporate it into the 911 trail, but the other one is something a bit more personal to me. It occurred to me as we passed the memorial to Robert Yost, the father of the Mason-Dixon Trail System.
I never had the pleasure of meeting him, but I know the type. Hard working people of vision make trails like this happen. This made me think of Al Kent, the man behind the Lenape Trail and Patriot’s Path in New Jersey. It was important that the 911 Trail not detract from the identities of these individual trails and the people who made them possible. When I saw the two separate routes for the Sept. 11th Trail, and that both ignore the Mason-Dixon Trail, right between the two entirely, it made me feel for the vision that was the Mason-Dixon Trail. This trail follows basically the same route from Havre De Grace to Newark, and could even further.

MD Trail in Iron Hill Park

It would be a tragedy to have this amazing trail overshadowed, when it represents American history better than any other local trail.
We continued on the trail route from the end of the road at the top of Iron Hill into the woods. We skirted more iron mine pits on the right, then began to make a gradual descent from the hill to the north. It was a lovely walk through big woods, down hill to Interstate 95. The trail hit what appeared to be an old woods road parallel with that highway, and turned left. I had been to this point before with the group, in the Spring of 2013.
I had now connected the hike with everything else I’d done. Always such a nice feeling. We turned right onto Welsh Tract Road, crossed 95, and then turned left into Folk Memorial Park where we had been parked. We finished at about 5 pm, before dark.
It had been a really great day out on a unique trail route that hopefully can get more recognition by local stewardship groups to secure and save it’s route. Since the time of the recent hike, I discovered that part of the trail west of where we had started was closed due to development. It’s sad to think that this could possibly happen to one of the sections we had walked. The entire route could lend itself pretty well to cycling as well as hiking with a little work.
A few of us went to have burritos in downtown Newark afterwards, and the town was mobbed with people. I wondered how many of these young people love to hike, but only visit nearby White Clay Creek, when there is such an interesting greenway just to the south.
Even if this trail can’t become part of another regional greenway, I have to try to help promote it, because it’s most certainly worth it.

Cheese