Hike #928; Newark DE and White Clay Creek

 Hike #928; Newark DE and White Clay Creek

4/3/16 Newark and White Clay Creek Loop with Jack Lowry, Sarah Jones, Jas Kumpikevicius, Jason Itell, Jennifer Berndt, Marina Font, Craig Craig, Lyz Hagenbuch, Ric Giantisco, Neil Washington, Cindy Browning, Amy Davis, Mike Heaney, Dan Asnis, Brian ?, and Kevin Gondek

Our next hike would be sort of a late posting, but something I’d been wanting to do for quite some time. I had originally planned a trip to the Catskills, but then the weather was not looking good and the road I was planning to drive might have been shut down. I felt it best to postpone that a few weeks and instead head to the south where it’d most certainly be a bit warmer.

Newark DE, Hall Trail

I figured out a loop from the Newark Shopping Center. I had looped from here once before on the Mason-Dixon Trail, but now the trail had been rerouted to reach the Tri State Corner, where Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Delaware all come together. I want to do the entire Mason-Dixon Trail, and so I had to go back to do this part I was missing. After this, I’ll have only one more section to do in Maryland, and I’ll have done the entire trail as far as Black Gut on the Susquehanna. A few more hikes will finish it for me.
We simply started the hike right from the shopping center, because the former Pomeroy Railroad went on the side of it, and now it’s a trail.

James F. Hall Trail

It was an easy start to the day, but rather cold and windy. I reassured everyone that we’d be in more gullies along the streams, and that it wouldn’t stay this bad. Jack wasn’t going to bring his guitar, then decided for it.
We headed down along the railroad bed, now paved, to where it used to split at a “Y”, and join the Philadelphia, Wilmington, and Baltimore Railroad, still active today. There was a piece of rail, some wheels, and other on display where the trail split. We turned right on the James F. Hall Trail from there, which paralleled the active railroad line heading to the west. I’d done this part for a short while on the past Newark loop trip, but didn’t follow it all the way.
We continue to the old Newark Passenger Station built in 1877. It is now the Newark History Museum. There was a lady out front that invited us to come on in later, but we wouldn’t be in the area by then. I told her we’d have to do another trip to Newark and come and see the museum.

Old Newark Passenger Station

From this point, this bit of the hike was new to me. I’d never followed the Hall Trail to the west of there. It is also the route of the East Coast Greenway, which also makes it the 911 National Memorial Trail, though I don’t think it should be. The Mason-Dixon Trail route is far better and closely parallels their planned route from Havre De Grace, Maryland to Newark, and it’s so much better, and also offers many historic sites missed on this alignment. That doesn’t mean there shouldn’t be a trail here, but it just doesn’t fit the theme of the 911 Trail as well.
We continued around from the station, then turned somewhat away from the tracks along Kells Park.

Hall Trail in Philips Park

The path returned to the edge of the railroad line, then again turned away at Philips Park. This was the nicest section of the Hall Trail to me, away from everything else and through some nice woodland. It even had a little bit of boardwalk.
We emerged from the woods onto Bradford Lane, a development, and the East Coast Greenway continued straight ahead. We continued to follow that, and after the nice section in the woods, the wind seemed to arrive again. We continued on Bradford Lane, then turned left onto Chrystler Ave which took us to the very large Elkton Road, all East Coast Greenway route. We followed it only to the bridge over the Christina River where we reached the Mason-Dixon Trail.
The trail could either go under the road bridge or up and across depending on the flood level of the Christina River. I had already done this section before, but it was among the simplest and most beautiful sections of the Mason-Dixon Trail I could remember, and felt it worth doing again because it fit well into my planned loop.

Mason-Dixon Trail along Christina River

The section was outstanding. Just a narrow, simple footpath along side the river intimately hugging it’s banks and weaving back and forth through the flood plains. This section is known as Rittenhouse Park.
It was a very long stretch with a lot to see. There was an old bridge site with abutments in place, and some narrow spots where we were on a crazy slope.

Jack in the Pipe!

We came to a giant pipe that went under a neighborhood on one side, and Lyz and Ric were immediately in it. Of course, many more of us had to follow through and go in the thing. Jason K reminded us that there was no other way out because they had tried it the last time we were out there. Still, we had some fun with that.
There were some enormous Silver Maple trees growing on the banks, and a railroad underpass, half of which was still tracked and heavily used. The trail was well marked, and it appeared as though some of it had be rerouted since the last time I was there. I could see some of the old blazes painted out at points where it would have been closer to the river. Flooding since the last visit had probably washed away the embankments and forced it to be moved.

Masno Dixon Trail along Christina River

We passed by more historic dam sites, and at one point found what appeared to be some sort of bridge that was removed, then laid along the river bank. The trail sometimes felt like a tunnel of green, with the new Spring foliage coming out along the river earlier than in the surrounding areas.
We continued on the trail out to Vassar Drive. Here, the trail turned right to left up to Nottingham Road and across, along Delrem Drive. We continued a block and then turned right on Windsor Drive I think, then again on Country Club Drive. This took us out to an intersection with New London Road.
There was a Rite Aid on the corner there, and so we took a break to get more drinks and such. Once we were all done, we crossed New London to Fremont Road. At the bottom of the hill and at a bend, the Mason-Dixon Trail re-entered the woods. It headed down hill and passed through a ropes course that I believe is part of the University of Delaware campus.
The trail reached Creek Road and turned left (eastbound). Creek Road is sort of one with the old Pomeroy Railroad here. Some of the original grade is a segment just below the road grade for a bit. We walked the road a short bit until the railroad bed turned away, and that was also the trail.

Old Pomeroy and Newark Railroad bed

Jason Itell met up with us at a parking lot there; he had just run a half marathon or something and hadn’t had enough yet!
We walked the railroad bed and other trails on the Mason-Dixon Trail to the north. I’d already done this section before, but it’s still very interesting to me. There is a footbridge over White Clay Creek where the railroad bridge used to be, but only above the original level. This railroad line had crossed the creek what seemed like countless times, and at low grade. It must have been a nightmare to maintain, as flooding probably destroyed bridges at each occurrence. It’s no wonder passenger service ended in 1927, and the line was torn up mostly by 1940. Much of it was abandoned in the late thirties.

New Mason Dixon Trail route

We continued along the creek until we reached the new reroute of the Mason Dixon Trail. There were not many blue blazes out there, just posts that had the name of each trail in it. We found where it turned left away from the creek and headed somewhat up hill.
It wasn’t really difficult. It was a beautiful trail along an interesting side slope going well out of the way to the west. There were nice little foot bridges over the tributaries that flowed down hill to the right as we gradually started descending westward.

Arc Boundary monument

The wind didn’t bother us for any of this section. We were in the trees, and in gullies pretty much from Rittenhouse Park on through to White Clay Creek State Park. The Mason-Dixon Trail pretty much followed the contours of the land heading west toward the state lines.
Our next point of interest was the Arc Boundary Monument, placed in 1892. This is the point where the boundary between Delaware and Pennsylvania ceases being a straight line, and turns to the arced boundary heading sort of northeast. This was part of the “Twelve Mile Circle”, with it’s center being the cupola of the New Castle City Courthouse, New Castle, DE established in 1750.

Twelve Mile Circle

The arc boundary actually dates back to far further, to 1681 when Charles II deeded all of the land in a 12 mile circle surrounding New Castle to William Penn. This land was held by the Duke of York who had won them in Dutch conquest. In 1682, the Duke also deeded these lands to Penn:

“ all that the Towne of Newcastle otherwise called Delaware and All that Tract of Land lying within the Compass or Circle of 12 Miles about the same scituate lying and being upon the River Delaware in America And all Islands in the same River Delaware and the said River and Soyle thereof lying North of the Southermost part of the said Circle of 12 Miles about the said Towne.”

The arc boundary also effects the NJ and DE state lines. Typically, the border line between states is the middle of the Delaware River, but within the twelve mile circle, the boundary is at the tide line on the NJ side. The circle does not encompass lands within the land mass of NJ, but water rights and islands in the Delaware within the circle belong to Delaware. This is also where there are two segments of Delaware within NJ, one at a nuclear power plant in Salem, and the other at the Kilcohook Dredge Spoil, formerly a National Wildlife Refuge. We found out about a lot of this during the NJ Perimeter series.
The arc boundary has an interesting illustration of the arc engraved into the top of it as well.

Arc boundary monument top

We continued on from here, after I figured out some confusion; I had thought we would reach the tri state boundary first, followed by the arc boundary, but I had looked at the map wrong. We crossed over Hopkins Road, then continued west. We were in Pennsylvania for most of this, having crossed the Mason-Dixon Line because the areas to the south are developed.
In Pennsylvania, it is known as White Clay Creek Preserve, still managed by DCNR which manages all state parks.
There was a small tributary that kept getting smaller and ended up pretty dry on the way to the tri state corner. There were nice giant trees, many of them Beech, throughout the woods.

Old barbed wire in a Beech tree

I spotted one particular tree that had the old style of barbed wire stuck into it. It’s very rare to find the old styles of barbed wire these days. Most of it is all taken by collectors or has been removed, deteriorated, etc. I started a collection of the stuff when I was little, because we found so many different varieties out on Survey jobs with my grandfather. It’d been a while since I had come across any of that old stuff on one of my hikes. This section of the park is a relatively new section of trail, and so this bit of it has gone without being taken.
We soon reached the tri state boundary. There were two in the area; the arc boundary has them more often together than others because they need to delineate the arc. The one I initially thought was actually the tri state corner was actually just another on the Maryland-Delaware line.

Tri State Boundary, MD, DE, and PA

It was a nice little spot, at a corner of private land by a farm.
Although the Mason-Dixon Line is a demarcation between four different states, it dates back much earlier to more of the disputes with William Penn, followed by his sons, and westward advancement.
The line was first surveyed between 1763 and 1767 by Chalres Mason and Jeremiah Dixon. Mason, an Astronomer, and Dixon, a Surveyor, created an amazingly accurate survey for the times between the two states.
We took a nice break at this point and checked out the markers. We then moved on our way back through the woods on the Pennsylvania side.

State line shot

I’m not sure at what point we crossed back into Delaware, because the line marking was not denoted on the way back. The trail was really nice and easy though, on the other side of the slope we had made our way out to the marker on. We emerged from the woods into a Delaware State Park parking area next to the historic Chambers House, built in 1820 by the son of the original settlers. The house changed hands several times, and eventually became part of the Nature Center for White Clay Creek State Park after a dam project for the creek was de-authorized due to public outcry.
From here, we continued on the Mason-Dixon Trail, but also took to a former route of it headed north.

Chambers House

It was a lovely walk along the creek, again very green for spring, with the Skunk Cabbage and Buttercups lining the trail. We passed a sign that said the trail was closed in this area, but we were too far in to turn back at this point anyway. We eventually came to the abutments to another of the Pomeroy Railroad bridges, where a bunch of people were hanging out fishing. We continued on the path beyond this point, and followed the trail north to Chambers Rock Road. From there, we left the Mason-Dixon Trail for the day to follow other trails at the other side of the preserve. We turned right on the road for a short bit, crossed over the White Clay Creek, and reached Thompson Station Road.

Pomeroy RR bridge site over White Clay Creek

Undoubtedly, the road takes it’s name from an historic station on the former Pomeroy Railroad, though I have no clue where this would have been. We turned left on the road, then right into a lot where we picked up the David English Trail. This must have been an early settler or something, but we didn’t find anything to tell us who this might have been. We turned right at a fork, then followed the circuitous trail to the east for a bit. This area is heavily used by mountain bikers, and so the trails are a little different than the standard hiking trails. They weave around a whole lot more. We continued to the Pleasant Run connector trail, a path down hill to the right away from David English Trail, across a bridge over Lamborn Run and across Pleasant Hill Road.

Whitley Farms Trail

After entering the woods on the other side, we reached the Whitley Farms Trails. I had brought up the option for anyone that wanted to go back, to just follow the railroad bed back along the creek into Newark. It wouldn’t be that far a walk, but no one really wanted to do that. As a result, I took to a slightly different version of the bonus miles I had been planning. I was originally going to do the long route of the Whitley Farms Trail, but instead we followed the direct route straight when we got to the choice of left, right or straight. This easier and more straightforward route followed an old farm road directly up hill at a more gradual climb.
We emerged at the abandoned former section of the Fairhill School Drive and turned right, which took us to an old farm, still lived in apparently on state park property, then we took to another section of the Whitley Farms Trail across open fields and by the barns. The trail was very dug out from many mountain bikers riding through on it. We followed this section out to the woods on the fields to the south.

Skills Trail

The trail entered the woods and we turned right. My plan was to follow it out to a near connection to the next park, but then we found a trail that was not on my map. The sign at the entrance to it said “Skills Trail”. I figured this must be a tougher route for the mountain bikers, and I could not have been more correct.
We walked the trail a short while and immediately came upon some logs and such that were cut up for the bikers to try to ride across. We then found more boardwalks and such as we continued. It would split into two and have one harder route, one easier route as we went through. This was one of the craziest cycle courses I’d ever come across.

Skills Trail

We didn’t see any signs that said “bikers only”, which was good. I’d hate for us to be out there and have someone roar up on us, someone could get hurt pretty easily on a thing like this!
There was a huge bridge section near the other end of the trail route which was really cool, propped up on vertical wood. It reminded me of another interesting one we’d found backpacking back in 2010. We continued to the end of the trail and reached the regular Whitley Farms Trail where we could turn right, by the edge of a lovely field. The trail continued through another section of woods, gradually down hill to it’s end at another part of Thompson Station Road. There was a Wallgreens there, and a couple of other businesses. We took a break, and Cindy was having awful problems with her boots. She was able to get some sandals at the Wallgreens, and then she was fine the rest of the way!

Redd's Park

We made our way from here across the road, then a short bit to Middle Road. We followed this short road to the end, where we got into Redd’s Park. The Redd’s Park Trail went straight through the woods on a well graded path straight ahead, heading south. This was very relaxing and good way to wind down the hike. We were closer to development, but still in a nice preserved swath. There were a few trails that broke off as we reached the south side, but it was obvious which ones we needed to take to reach the Newark Reservoir. We took the connector trail to the edge of the berm at the reservoir, then turned right. This was an open reservoir with a paved path along the berm all the way around it. The right turn was the quicker way out.

Newark Reservoir path

We followed the edge of the reservoir, with a lot of other people around by this point. When we reached a fork, the lower fork led down away from the reservoir and toward town. Some of the group remained above and then rolled down the hillside for fun. Amy and I both went up to roll down because it looked like so much fun.
I went head over heels rolling forward, which I am told looked pretty crazy, and I think I hit my head on something on the way down. I don’t remember much of the rest of the hike well after this. We crossed over Old Paper Mill Road at the parking lot for the reservoir, then crossed Old Paper Mill Park to the edge of White Clay Creek. We crossed over a small tributary that flowed in, then crossed the main creek on Paper Mill Road.

Pomeroy Rail Trail

Paper Mill Road led us down to the Pomeroy Rail Trail again, which we were able to take directly to the Newark Shopping Center, our end point.
We discussed getting something to eat after, and we talked about the Iron Hill Brewery. We had looked into doing this on the previous hike, but the problem was that it was so busy that day we couldn’t get in. I think someone called in and figured out we could do it. Some I guess stayed at the shopping center and had pizza, but the majority of the group walked further from Newark Shopping Center to the brewery for a delicious dinner. I had some sort of burger that was absolutely outstanding.
I don’t recall much else very well. I was tired and felt dizzy. I was going to pick up Jillane at the airport the next day, which was in Philadelphia, and I didn’t want to drive home and back, nor did I feel well enough to drive. Jason K offered to let me crash at his place, as well as Lyz and Ric at there’s just over the NJ line, but I didn’t think I could drive anywhere quite yet.

Nope

I thought to sleep in my car for a while, but at this point I was freezing cold and shivering. There was a dirt cheap motel right next to the Newark Shopping Center where I decided to just get a room and pass out. It’s a good thing I did, because I could barely think straight, an initially pulled out into the one way street. Kevin also got a room at the same place, which was probably a smart move after such a long crazy day of over twenty miles.

It was an awesome day overall, and probably the best hike I’d done in Delaware to date. I was so glad such a large group had joined me for this one. I hope everyone is inclined to join me more often as we continue to branch out, in addition to doing the interesting things closer to back home. This year really is proving it could be the best year we’ve had with the group to date, we seem to have accomplished a perfect level of excitement, relaxation, and discovery. There is so much more I am looking forward to.