Hike #1306; Valley Forge and King of Prussia Loop

Hike #1306; Valley Forge/King of Prussia Loop

3/14/20 Valley Forge and King of Prussia Loop with Justin Gurbisz, Kirk Rohn, Brittany Audrey, Sharon Daley Kelly, Neil George, Michael Krejsa, Professor John DiFiore, Diane Reider, and Robin Deitz

This next hike would be a long loop trip I arranged around the area of Valley Forge PA.
I had hiked this area before, but there is of course still a ton to do. The last time I had been in the area was about a year ago.

Chester Valley Trail

I usually try to plan a hike around other things I have going on, and my dear friends Conrad and Teresa were to have their joint birthday dinner that night in Wayne PA, and I’ve always been honored to be a guest at that event, seeing that I am one of Conrad’s longest known friends.
I went over the maps and came up with several hikes that would end in the area of Wayne PA, all of which looked to be very good. I decided on one that would be a loop, and feature some of the places we’d been on past hikes, but also cover a lot of new stuff I’d been wanting to see.

Chester Valley Trail

The most substantial among these, which I’d only begun to scrape the surface of on previous hikes, was the old Reading Railroad’s Chester Valley Branch.
As the date neared, I got a message from Teresa saying that the dinner was postponed to a later date due to the Corona Virus outbreak.
This has turned into a huge debacle, and Italy is completely on shut down, as well as pretty much all of Europe. As a result of all of this, a lot of things are getting shut down. Parks are all being closed. Most events are being canceled.

Rooftop fun

The thing is, it is actually healthy to be out in the fresh air and sun. We just have to be careful not to infect anyone else. I decided not to cancel, and apparently no one decided to cancel pretty much anything based on the numbers of people we saw out.
I didn’t know what to expect, how many to expect, or even if we were going to be able to do the hike. If things were getting shut down, we could easily be turned away.
Because the dinner was canceled, I decided to run a normal carpool like I usually do.

Historic marker on Paoli Massacre on the trail

As long as I had people coming with me though, I wasn’t worried if no one else showed up out of fear or whatever. It was a loop, so I didn’t have to concern myself with shuttles.

Chester Valley Trail

Elizabeth came out with us at the start, but then felt sick so when we picked up Kirk, she opted to bail out and head home.
The drive down went rather fast, but I was later than I wanted to be, because I left early to get some photos along the Radnor Trail. I have several historic photos I wanted to put together for my then and now compilations. We only ended up at the meeting point about ten minutes early, which wasn’t enough to do that side trip. No matter, I’d be able to go over at the end to get some of that done.

An old bridge abutment next to a new underpass...

The meeting point I chose was perfect in case there were closures, at the Swedesford Plaza Shopping Center in the area of Berwyn PA. Shopping centers are always the best to meet in, just in case we run after dark, but in this case it was even better in case cars needed to be moved on short notice.
I was surprised to see as many show up as they did. The weather was really nice, and it turned out to be the perfect day to be out. Everyone greeted warmly with elbow slams rather than the normal hugs.

Trail in Chesterbrook area

We started the hike from the lot by walking to the back of the shopping center, to a very high sound barrier wall or something. We walked to the end of the wall where there was a little foot path that led down into a cut where we picked up the paved Chester Valley Trail.
The Chester Valley Trail follows mostly the abandoned right of way of the Chester Valley Branch of the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad, which was abandoned mostly in 1989 and ripped up in the 1990s.

Trail in Chesterbrook area

The branch line started out in 1835 as the Philadelphia and Chester Valley Railroad. Like a lot of railroads, there was opposition to its construction, and then there was a depression in the 1830s.
It was reorganized as the Chester Valley Railroad and opened by September of 1853.
Within a couple of years, the line was controlled by the Reading Railroad, and it was a good connection out to the Pennsylvania Railroad in Downingtown, which had purchased the state’s Main Line of Public Works in 1857.

Some sort of old base or something...

When Robert E. Lee invated Pennsylvania just after that, it was convenient to have the connection with the Pennsylvania Railroad at Downingtown because the Pennsylvania Railroad could use it to reach Safe Harbor to the west more quickly.
At the time, Pennsylvania Railroad made its way using mostly the route of the old Philadelphia and Columbia Railroad, which passed through Downingtown. Eventually, Pennsylvania Railroad wanted its own route, which came about as the Trenton Cutoff.

Valley Creek

The Trenton Cutoff was completed in 1892, and broke off of the main in Trenton, then bypassed Philadelphia, mainly for freight, and re-joined the main line at Glen Rock. A long portion of it through the Chester Valley closely paralleled the Chester Valley Line. This made it a less important spur line rather than a major through route.
The line was upgraded and continued in service until the 1989 removal. A portion had on ramps to a highway built over it. The section out of Bridgeport remained active until 2010.

Trail in Chesterbrook area

The tracks continued through to King of Prussia, but were ripped up in May of 2011.
I had walked the section of the line from Bridgeport east back in April of 2008, but that was the limit of my exploring on the line.
The Chester Valley Trail has been under development for many years. The first bit between Exton and King of Prussia has been in place a while now, and Phase 2 will open the bit that was more recently abandoned closer to Bridgeport. This time, we would do a bit at the start, and more at the end.

Ruins along Valley Creek

Once we got down, we turned right on the paved trail heading to the west.
To the east, we could see the bridge that carries Contention Lane over the railroad bed. It’s an odd example of a bridge still made of wood entirely. Most such bridges have long since disappeared. This one was built about 1965, and is still holding pretty strong. These are almost always replaced by concrete structures, and this one is probably not far off from that. It’s one lane, which creates a traffic issue.

PA Turnpike underpass

As we walked, there was a building with a set of steps up to the right, which I think was a Public Storage place. Justin, Brittany, and I decided we would climb up it to the roof, since it looked so easy. We ended up wandering to the end of the lower roof and back, then came back down to the trail level again.
We passed a trail marker that told the story of British General William Howe and the Paoli Massacre of the Continental Army.

Old Wilson Road Bridge

We continued along the trail past a connection to D’ambrosio Park, and then passed beneath a concrete box culvert beneath Swedesford Road.

View between Mt Misery and Mt Joy

There were some stone abutment remnants there at the former bridge site, just before the box culvert that would have been for the old railroad.
The trail soon skirted an access road to some retail before we reached Chesterbrook Blvd, where we turned to the right to cross over Rt 202.
Once on the other side, we kept to the left and headed north on a grassy knoll between a line of trees. We then crossed Duportail Road, and skirted a parking lot on the other side, and then passed over a retention pond.

Big Sycamore at the Knox estate

Soon, we picked up a paved trail that was closely parallel with Chesterbrook Blvd. We kept to the left on this, which soon took us into a lovely little wooded section.

Old Knox estate foundation

We passed over a little foot bridge, and then saw a round stone remnant on the other side, which I do not know what it was.
We continued on the paved trail parallel with a parking lot, through more woods, parallel with a park on the right, and then across a foot bridge over the Valle Creek.
From there, we turned right and soon crossed over Bradford Road. The trail continued along the west side of Valley Creek into more woods heading to the north toward Valley Forge.

Philander C. Knox House

To the right of the trail, which looks like it floods very often, there was a mountain bike path (unpaved, the main trail was paved), which led out along what appeared to be an old mill race. We followed it to the foundation of some kind of old mill building, which was pretty cool.
We then continued on the trail a bit further ahead and passed beneath the Pennsylvania Turnike/I-76. On the other side, the trail continued unpaved, and turned to the right along the creek. Lafayette’s Headquarters was just across the creek.

Knox Greenhouse

The trail soon emerged at the Wilson Road Bridge, built in 1886 by John Dentihorne & Son of Phoenixville Pa over the Valley Creek. It is a 60 ft long Pratt through Pony Truss now used as a trail bridge, in nice condition.
We continued straight across from here to continue along the edge of the Valley Creek.
We continued along this route around a corner and into a nice wide open field, where ahead we could see both Mt. Misery to our left and Mt. Joy to the right. This was supposedly named by the explorers who found the land, and they named one Mt. Misery when they were lost and Mt. Joy later.

Knox Estate and Mt. Joy

We continued on the trail to a tree line straight ahead, where there was some kind of old foundation just into the woods. We turned left here because Sharon told us there was a restroom up at a parking area just above us, so we started heading there.

Knox Covered Bridge

There was a lovely carriage house style building with an enormous Sycamore tree growing up beside it. We could see the parking lot just above that, which was a complete mad house. There were cars parked in most spots, as well as several of them lined up the entrance road.
To the right was a beautiful stone building with an event tent set up alongside of it, with an older part and a newer, expansive addition to it.

Mt. Misery Trail

This was the historic Philander Chase Knox estate in Valley Forge Pennsylvania. Brigadier General William Maxwell of the New Jersey Brigade headquartered near here. The small section of the building dates back to before the Revolutionary at which time it was home of John Brown.
The home remained in the same family until 1854 when it was sold and passed through many hands. In 1893, it was purchased by Edward and Amanda Mathews, who became rich through the California gold rush.

Horse Shoe Trail on Mt. Misery

We walked to the left of the building. The other buildings we had seen a bit earlier were part of the same estate except for another one below to our left was General Lafayette’s Quarters during the Revolution, and a building below the P. C. Knox House was General Henry Knox’s quarters. I’m not sure if Henry Knox is related to P. C. Knox, but that would be interesting if it were the case. I could find nothing upon my reading so far that they were related in any way.
We went up to the parking lot for the park just ahead, and it was surprisingly overrun.

Colonial Springs Bottling Plant

It was surprising to see so many there. With Chester and Montgomery County Parks closed (Valley Forge National Historic Park occupies parts of both counties), I figured it would be close to empty. Everyone is pushing for “social distancing”, but this was not the case here. The way I was originally planning to go was up Mt. Joy and through the Knox Covered Bridge just to the north, but there were just too many people going that way. I grabbed a map from the kiosk, which didn’t help much because it didn’t show all the trails. Google maps was actually more accurate when it came to these.

We took a short break at the restroom area, and people went by like crazy.
A young couple were going by while I was at the kiosk, and a meat head and his girlfriend stopped; the meat head told his girlfriend to put her sandwich into a bag because animals will get them. I laughed and said “nothing is going to get you in this park”. Valley Forge is in the middle of suburbia. The guy said “there are mountain lions out there!” to which I responded there were none here. I have personally seen one, and it was in northern NJ, not in suburbia like this. He then said there were brown bears.

In the Colonial Springs building

I again responded “There are no brown bears around here. Only black bears”. The guy said “oh yeah”. And I replied “They won’t bother you.”
The meat head responded “not with me around they won’t!”, which was the most pathetic display of machismo I have seen in quite a long while.
I sometimes wonder what women see in people that come across as so dumb. I wonder if she feels safe with that guy. I let it go, and we were soon on our way over toward the covered bridge.

Colonial Springs

Knox Covered Bridge was originally built in 1851, and it was known as the Valley Forge Dam Covered Bridge. It was washed away in a flood in 1865 and replaced by the the current structure a little longer and higher. The original was sixty feet long, the second was sixty five.
The bridge lasted until about 1950 when it was badly damaged by fire, and then rebuilt by the park. It also was later badly damaged by a truck driver trying to get through it. It has since been reinforced with a steel superstructure so that it can handle more weight, and it still carries traffic to this day.

Old Colonial Springs Bottling Plant

We didn’t have to go all the way over to the bridge. I had originally thought we might take the Valley Trail and then another up Mt. Misery he steep way, but I wanted to just go direct.

Colonial Springs Bottling Co.

My goal initially doing this hike was to do as much new stuff as possible, and just hit a few of the popular nice spots I’d done in the past.
I had never done the south side of the white blazed Mt. Misery Trail, so it was fine to do this.
We made our way up hill, and the trail became a nice foot path with good erosion steps on the way up. We passed tons of other people on this, but less than there were going the other way.
Other trails broke off in different directions, unmarked. The first one to break off to the right was Wolfinger Trail, the steeper one.
We continued to the left from there and passed the meat head and his girlfriend, who were going really slow walking a dog.
When we reached the height of the land, there were houses to the left at the very top of Mt. Misery. We then intersected with the yellow blazed Horse-Shoe Trail which continued to the west to the Appalachian Trail in St. Anthony’s Wilderness.

Colonial Springs Bottling Company

The Horse-Shoe Trail is one of the long distance trails I recently completed finally in 2019, after having done my first section of it in Valley Forge in 2008.
The trail was founded by Henry Woolman who had ridden a section of the Appalachian Trail in the Great Smokey Mountains of Virginia on horseback, and declared that southeastern Pennsylvania is at least as beautiful and should have it’s own trail that would be open to both hikers and equestrians. He formed the Horse-Shoe Trail Club in 1935 and worked with land owners to set up the route of the trail.

More Colonial Springs ruins

The trail was intended to connect the city of Philadelphia to the Appalachian Trail, which at the time was atop Blue Mountain.
The AT was moved because of Fort Indiantown Gap Military Reservation, and so the Horse-Shoe Trail had to be extended to the north to St. Anthony’s Wilderness where it currently ends atop Stoney Mountain on the AT.
Today, the Horse-Shoe Trail is 140 miles long, and traverses very diverse locations which is why I love it so much. It goes through yards and fields, as well as woods and many historic sites.

More Colonial Springs ruins

We started following the eastbound trail down Mt. Misery on the north side, with a bit of a view. Diane pointed out that we could see the Limerick Nuclear Power Plant billowing from up there.
We continued down hill, and soon came to one of the highlights of the trail in Valley Forge, the Colonial Springs Bottling Plant ruins.
I had told everyone that I thought it once belonged to Benjamin Franklin, but I couldn’t remember quite all of the history.
I was partially on point; the spring was owned by General Benjamin Franklin Fisher.

Horse Shoe Trail

It is unclear when exactly the spring was first used industrially. I understand it was one known as Cold Spring, and was later known as Colonial Springs.
The bottling company was built some time in the 1800s, but there doesn’t seem to be any clear answer as to exactly when.
Fisher was apparently a Civil War veteran who purchased the property and then leased the rights to use the water from the spring to other entrepreneurs. He built his home directly across form the spring on the hillside, but that was torn down when the park took over the property.

Giant Red Oak on Horse Shoe Trail

The spring water bottling plant continued until the death of B. F. Fisher in 1915 when it was sold to Charles Hires who owned Hires Root Beer. There is no evidence that Hires used the water from the spring to produce his root beer, but it is possible.
The park purchased the property in the 1030s, just in time for the Horse-Shoe Trail to arrive.
When I first visited this site in 2008, the crumbling stones were in danger of imminent collapse, so in more recent years, the national park service restored the southern section of it, which I think is rather obvious reproduction, with frames around the windows to keep it from collapsing any further.

Horse Shoe Trail route

It’s been made a bit shorter than it used to be, but at least the majority of the structure is still standing as it was.
We are able to walk right into the area, and then into a little tunnel into the hillside beside where the spring water comes out, which is pretty cool.
We checked all of this out, and then made our way out through the building frame to the north a bit more. The people who had been behind us, including the meat head and his girlfriend and wuss looking dog were gaining on us.

Historic homes in Valley Forge

We headed down hill along the trail, and passed some more old stone ruins. The larger stream to the left passed through another section of ruins where the water cascaded over some of them, and another masonry building remnant was on the right side. Another trail broke off, but we opted to stay on the Horse-Shoe Trail down to it’s terminus.
The Horse-Shoe Trail comes down toward the village of Valley Forge. We passed by a lovely enormous Red Oak tree, and then passed by some beautiful masonry buildings.

Stone arch in Valley Forge

It’s annoying that the national park service does not have a single map that shows what any of these historic stone structures are, or how old they are. The trail passed between a house on the right, and a couple of other stone buildings on the left side.
Soon, the trail came out to a double stone arch bridge on Valley Forge Road across Valley Creek. Horse-Shoe Trail turned right on the road across the bridge to the Woolman Plaque on the east side, a memorial to the trail’s founder, and the eastern blazed terminus.

Woolman marker

As mentioned previously, the Horse-Shoe Trail was intended to connect the Appalachian Trail to Philadelphia, which the marked route does not. There was the triple yellow blaze right there.
It’s possible to do this however, by following either the Joseph Plumb Martin Trail or the Chapel Trail from this point east to the Sullivan Bridge, and then to the Schuylkill River Trail in to Philly. I kind of wish they would blaze that route, because it’s really cool. The problem is, you can’t take a horse on those sections at this time.

David Potts House after being Victorianized

We crossed Valley Forge Road and reached the historic David Potts House. This was sometimes known as “The Bake House” in the years after the Revolution.

David Potts House now

This has since been somewhat disproved, because it was not found that the house contained the large ovens that it would have needed during the time of the encampment.

Washington's Headquarters

The David Potts house, also known as the William DeWees house, was there during the Revolution, although I’m not sure how much of it. Probably only the smaller section of it, because Washington would have chosen it as his headquarters over the much smaller Isaac Potts House just out behind it in the open area.
This David Potts House was a sort of ironmasters house, because Potts bought the Valley Forge itself at some point. In the 1800's, the building was Victorianized with a large cupola and served as the Washington Inn until it became part of the park and it was restored.

Historic marker on Valley Creek

The Isaac Potts House, which served as the headquarters, was built by 1773, and Washington headquartered here between December 1777 and June 1778.

Washington's Headquarters

The encampment was all around this area, and there were reproductions of the log cabins built around the site on the hills and such to look as it would have.

Pedestrian tunnel

Sharon was telling me about some show she had been watching about the Revolution, and how it was overall pretty well done, save for the fact that they made all of the guys good looking and with good teeth, which would certainly not have been the case back then.
Washington was known to have wooden teeth, which was partially true. His actual teeth I have read were also made of ivory as well as other human teeth! Quite gross!

Abandoned trail on the Schuylkill

Just beyond Washington’s Headquarters was the former Reading Railroad station, which had also recently been well restored. Before going over there, I wanted to show everyone something we had gone to the last time I visited this site.
We made our way down a trail with a closed sign, which led to a pedestrian tunnel beneath the railroad tracks, built into the same bridge that carries the Valley Creek beneath the tracks. It’s quite a cool spot. This brought us out to the Schuylkill River on the other side.

Bridge and pedestrian tunnel

We passed through to the other side, and there was an abandoned section of trail and beat up old railings extending to the east along the slope below the railroad.

Reading underpass

These were probably at one time used as a sort of station platform thing for trains coming from the other direction to Valley Forge, but remnants of any steps or anything are long gone.
It was definitely the site of more trail, because there are footings for a pedestrian bridge that used to cross the mouth of the Valley Creek to the Schuylkill.
We all climbed up onto the abutment to take a little break. The stone facade of the Reading Railroad bridge underpass was quite nice, and was extended at one point with concrete.

Reading bridge

I suppose the original platform from the station is covered over by fill from when the railroad was widened.
We made our way back through the tunnel from here. It looked pretty bad along the river heading down stream. I had hiked that route back in 2008, but I wanted to do something different this time.
We headed back underneath and over to the former Reading station. It was looking quite lovely, with the long awning extending over the platform. I don’t recall that being last visit.

Valley Forge Station

This Reading Railroad station was built in 1911 to bridge the people of Philadelphia to the then Valley Forge State Park. It was built of local stone, the same material from which the adjacent historic Potts Houses were constructed of.
The Reading Railroad is now run by Norfolk Southern, and SEPTA runs passenger trains on the lines along the north side of the Schuykill, while the south side is now only freight. There have been talks of restoring rail service to Valley Forge, but it hasn’t happened along this freight line.

Historic marker at the station

We climbed up to the platform of the station, which was quite beautiful. It overlooks the entire Washington’s Headquarters and encampment site.

Historic Valley Forge Station postcard image

The restoration work here took place in 2009, and the museum is now open as an historic museum. Unfortunately, although the park was open, programs and centers were closed.

The station now

We made our way from the station down the platform and then out across the field to a switchback path up to the Delaware Memorial.

Historic marker

We stopped at another restroom at the top for a little break. Someone said something about their being a “George Michael Restroom” somewhere in the park, and I didn’t get what they were talking about, but regardless, I started singing “Careless Wisper” walking away.

Valley Forge Station

The switchbacks were kind of annoying, so I skipped them by and walked in the grass for a bit.
We walked a little bit of River Road from this area, and then turned to the left on Chapel Trail, which follows a bit of open field to the east.
The Joseph Plumb Martin Trail is a multi use trail that parallels Chapel Trail, which is more of a natural hiking trail, to the south. Soon, Chapel Trail took us into the woods more deeply.

Valley Forge Station area

It was a really nice stretch, on a steep slope above the railroad tracks.
Soon, we came to an intersection where there was a memorial stone to Major General John Armstrong. It was he who guarded the roads from Philadelphia against British attack in this area, which included the original Sullivan’s Bridge.
Some of the trail we were following looked to be former road, other sections just foot path.

Armstrong Memorial

We got off of the official trail at one point and climbed down a steep slope, then back up, because the real trail went south a bit to avoid this. I didn’t even really notice.
As we walked, a train went by on the tracks directly below us, and blew the whistle for us as it went by.
A trail came in from the right, from Varnum’s Picnic Area, with some nice wooden step things on it. The trail took us a little lower in elevation, and closer to the railroad tracks as the landscape lowered.

Historic marker

To the left of us was a masonry platform that looked to be some sort of a bridge abutment. I could find no evidence on historic maps to show that there was ever a bridge here across the tracks, and the other side doesn’t appear to have ever had a road of any kind.

Steep spot

In fact, the other side looks like it’s just swamp and wetlands. It’s possible that if there was ever a bridge, the railroad was widened and had taken it out, because we know that happened from the look of the bridge we had seen further back, but none of the USGS maps from 1894 through 1952 show anything there. It was made of stone, so it would be certainly from that time period. We all went out on the thing to have a closer look. The best guess that Mike K. and I could come up with was that there could have been a signal or something.

A train goes by

We continued along the trail, which got down to an even lower level, at about the same or close to the same grade as the railroad, and meandered a bit more.

Chapel Trail

Soon, someone spotted some ruins off in the woods to the left, between the trail and the railroad tracks.
It was a handsome stone ruin, with three prominent walls still standing. We headed over to it to take a closer look.
The first thing I noticed on my approach was the stone lined well hole, still pretty intact. We approached and stepped into the ruins, and I could see right where the floor used to be by how some of the stones protruded from the walls more than other ones.

Ruins

Mike determined pretty certainly that a wider area of stones on the north side of the structure was formerly a fireplace. It was badly collapsed, but certainly was enclosed once.

Well hole

There were no fire bricks or ganister of any kind to be found, but it was a pretty sure thing. In checking the chimney ruin more closely, I found a section of wood still stuck inside one of the walls for bracing. It would have been a low ceiling, but then again, men were much shorter back in those days.
I think it was Kirk noticed on the other side of the building that it was inconsistent with where the rest of us had first looked. Certainly, the west side was built at a different time, and had a somewhat different purpose than the rest. I am rather certain it was a living quarters, because of the well and fireplace, but this other room had no doorway into the other side of the house. Perhaps it had a wooden section enclosure that connected it with the rest of building, or perhaps it was some other use altogether.
Like so many of the structures at Valley Forge, I could find no historic documentation of this building at all.
We made our way out and returned to the Chapel Trail heading east.
The Chapel Trail turned to the right after a bit, toward its terminus, but we went straight.

Fireplace ruins

My plan was to continue a weird way from Valley Forge onto what maps are calling Schuylkill River Trail West.
The Chapel Trail turned in an area that used to be a spur track out to quarries in the present day property of Valley Forge.
This entire area was once a different settlement name, known as Port Kennedy. There was a hotel and several dwellings, several quarries, and more. Port Kennedy also had a railroad station, which still stands, but it was renamed Valley Forge Park Station after the park took over the property. Today, only the station and one other house remain of what was the settlement of Port Kennedy.
We started following along the tracks to the east a bit, as the station was coming in to better view. I got another then and now compilation shot at this point, which I’m rather confused by. The station in the 1911 photo, as well as other photos, looks nothing the same.

Valley Forge Park/Port Kennedy Station in 1911, Reading Railroad Historic Photograph Collection

If it is in fact the same building, it underwent some major renovations over time. I have seen historic photos of the station where it looks much the same it does today.

Valley Forge Park/Port Kennedy Station today

On the other hand, I have seen other photos from 1911 and maybe earlier where it looks totally different. In some it has a peaked roof, in some it looks flat.

Valley Forge Park Station

It seems at some point, from what I’ve seen, Reading Railroad started doing these flatter roof stations, but at some point this one was switched to a neo German style peaked level.
Port Kennedy was named for Alexander Kennedy, who owned the lime industry quarries of the area.
I have historic photos from 1907 that show this with a peaked roof, then one from 1911 which show it with a flatter one, and today it has a peaked one. It also did at the time passenger service ceased to this point, which I believe was in 1981.

Historic Port Kennedy Scene

This station, like the other one, is also owned by Valley Forge NHP, but nothing is being done with it, and it’s in a sad state of disrepair.
We walked up to the platform and around the station, then reached the new pedestrian bridge over the Schuylkill. This is apparently the point the original Sullivan Bridge was, or at least close to it.
The predecessor to that bridge was actually an older road bridge which has since been replaced. It had a pedestrian walkway on it. Back in 2013, on one of Justin’s first hikes with me, we started right by here and walked across that bridge.

New 422 bridge

Now, the new bridge that is pedestrian only was complete. People looked at us oddly walking by the derelict station from on the bridge.
We continued beneath the new Rt 422 bridge, and my plan was to come out on the other side where the Schuylkill River Trail connection was almost there. We could then follow that for a good distance.
We could se obviously where the trail was meant to go, and came up the other side. I tried going up the hill to the right, parallel with 422, but there was a chain link fence where we needed to go.

Future Schuylkill River Trail West

We ended up going around the chain link fence, and then through an area of lawn dump shit and vegetative garbage to come out in a lawn of an apartment complex.
We turned left along the edge of the lawn, and a named foot path went into the woods almost immediately. I thought this might continue down around the slope in the direction we were going, but it came out right onto the future path below the bridge. If I had walked only slightly further, we would have missed all of that garbage crap and been able to walk right on through. We continued along the apartments to the east.

We picked up the trail at the end of a parking area, and then followed it a short distance to an intersection.
To the left, the trail just ended abruptly at a line of woods. This will likely go through to where we were under the new bridge. We turned to the right to continue on the completed paved trail to the east.
This is the trail that was dubbed “Schuylkill River Trail West”.
The main trail on the other side is almost complete and continuous through. This bit is substantial but still has a pretty long way to go.

When we did the “pink protest hike” in 2008, we hiked through this area, but I don’t believe any of this trail section existed yet. At the time, we were on roads just to the south of here. The Pink Protest Hike was one that ended at an Appalachian Mountain Club dinner and awards thing for the people who hiked the most mileage within the club for the year. I got the award every year I posted my hikes through the group, which led to a lot of jealousy and acting out. As a result of a lot of this, my plan was to have the entire group show up wearing the most ridiculous stuff we could find and just have a good time.

Jungle Gym

That group mostly showed up in either a shirt and tie, or otherwise their hiking clothes like gortex or whatever. Many of us in the group were wearing pink and purple, which was particularly funny. The trail led us a bit away from the river and active railroad to the right a bit. As we followed along the edge of the apartment complex, and it was coming to an end, we spotted an abandoned jungle gym in the woods to the right. Of course, we had to go up and check it out. There were some sizable trees growing through it, so we had a look around before we continued ahead.

Jungle gym

The trail leveled off after a slight uphill, and came to a wide open area. Justin spotted something off to the left of the trail in the woods, an abandoned building of some sort. Brittany was ready to run right to it, but I told her to hold off. There was a guy in the distance walking toward us with a kid on his shoulder. We made some kind of dumb jokes about it that I don’t quite remember, and when the guy had passed, we went downhill through the weeds. After just a little time, I came out first near the west side o fthe building, which had trees growing along its edges pretty heavily.

Abandoned

There was a way in around the left side. I wandered on in followed by Justin and then Brittany. Some of the others stayed outside, but eventually I think everyone made their way in.
This was a pretty open building. There were several rooms, but none of them appeared to have any serious equipment left inside. Some of the light fixtures were busted and hanging looking indiscernible. A room just a little closer to the center had a handicapped ramp on it.
Some of the rooms on the south side had some talented graffiti inside.

Abandoned

There was one of a cityscape and a guy listening to a boom box. Justin said it was the Philadelphia skyline based on some of the buildings.

Abandoned

I thought it was New York, because I thought one of them looked like the Chrysler Building. Everyone came through the building, and we were soon ready to make our way out when all of a sudden we spotted a ladder going toward the roof. Justin went up followed immediately by me. We got out on the roof, which looked like total crap. Some of it was ready to collapse through, although there was a truss frame to most of it. We could still have fallen through it. I jumped on the roof for a moment which was probably pretty dumb. Kirk came up next, but didn’t step out.

Abandoned

It was best to get out of there before it got really bad. We went back down the ladder and headed out of the building on the east side, opposite where we went in.

Abandoned

There was a sort of access road that was somewhat overgrown to that side. We followed it out to an open field area, and then started heading to the right slightly until we came back out on the Schuylkill River Trail again. There were some people walking around that saw us come out of the weeds. They probably thought we were nuts. We followed the trail across another access road, and then just down slope from a sewage treatment plant. It was a pretty stinky area to go by. The trail turned south around the east side of the facility, and then crossed the Trout Creek on a foot bridge, as well as a set of disused old railroad tracks, an industrial spur from the Reading line to the north. When we had hiked out this way bac in 08, we followed this rail line. We had come in from Valley Forge Road, when the tracks were not so badly overgrown, and ended up down along the rail yard to the north. This time, I planned to simply follow the trail on through.

Abandoned

The trail went slightly down, and then skirted the land of Impounding Basin #22. We went back up a hill, and then leveled off slightly. The trail emerged in Heuser Park

Da rooof

This was a big park with a restroom in the middle.
We had a little break here.
There were tons of people in this area. We had started seeing more the closer we got to this park. What with all of the COVID19 virus scare, and people being told to limit engagement, no one really seemed too worried.
I really haven’t been worried except for my grandfather, who had just turned 86 on Friday. At this point, the Flu is still way wore.
People were walking laps up and down the parking lot. Everyone walking around seemed to be on the phone with someone.

Abandoned

We eventually moved on along the trail to the east, and the trail had these hand rails going down hill slightly.

Abandoned

It was another joke basically, where there’s pretty much no way you could fall off of this trail, and you’d literally fall less than a foot if you did go off of it. This got me thinking about government overreaction. There is such a small number of people they think this virus will effect, just as there may be an even smaller number of people who would ever fall off of this trail and fall literally maybe a foot, but they still had to put up this insane fence. We weaved around a little bit, and then started following a more level area below an apartment complex.

Ham. Justin found a thingy

There was a wide grassy swath area, and we could see a set of somewhat overgrown railroad tracks behind a fence to the left. This was part of the Norfolk Southern Abrahams Yard.

When I did the last hike out in this area, Jason Itell laid out a route where we followed a spur track to the west end of the yard, and then went under the tracks to follow the edge of the Schuylkill River for a bit. This time we had a much easier route. We simply followed the apartment complex area out to Abrams Mill Road. We turned right briefly, and then left back into the woods on the continuation of the trail. There was a bit of a fill to the north of us, which I think was another former rail bed. The trail went slightly up hill and emerged in a ball field of Bob Case Park.
The paved trail section ended right at this ball field section with no indication of where the future plan for it might be.
We had been talking about what we were going to do for lunch, and I was looking over the maps for what was close. There was a pizza place I saw along the way, along the road closest to the railroad tracks.

While we walked, I zoomed in and looked a little harder, and found a second pizza place as well as a convenience store and a pub called Screwballs Sports Bar and Grille.
Mike and I were more keen on this. I liked the idea of sitting down and having a meal. They were talking about closing restaurants soon, and I think we were probably thinking about how it could be nice to get that in for the last time in a while. It’s a good thing we did.
We walked out through the ball fields to Abrams Road, then continued across an intersection to Beidler Road, where we turned left to head east.

On da roof!

This wasn’t the road closes to the tracks like I’d originally planned, but it went closer to other options.
It didn’t take us very long to reach the strip mall that all of these establishments were in.
Mike and I were the only ones that went into Screwballs. The others went into an Italian and Pizza place next door.
Mike and I sat at an extra large table thinking that eventually the others would want to join us inside, but surprisingly no one ever came in!
Mike treated me to lunch, and got me a really good burger and some IPA I’d never had before. I think it was called Hazy something.

We chatted for a while about what was coming up, about his recent hike to the Mauch Chunk Switchback Gravity Railroad, and lots of other stuff. It was a really good lunch break. I also had a hot dog because I couldn’t resist. I saw both on the list and saw that the hot dog was pretty cheap, not knowing that Mike was going to pick up the check. When we were done, we headed out and regrouped. Some of the group used the convenience store, and we then continued walking along Beidler Road.

Abandoned spur

Along the way, we passed the entrance to Sweetbriar Park, which was one of the routes I had considered using for this hike, but I figured it would be just barely too long for it to work for us. Instead, we continued on Beidler Road across Henderson Road and past another strip mall.
Just past the strip mall was the Hope Community Church, which had a very large parking lot was on the left.
I didn’t know what to expect here, but I figured it was worth a try.

Abandoned spur

If we walked down through the lot, it brought us pretty close to the railroad tracks, and I figured we could use it as a cut through for a short cut.

We walked down through the lot, and there were some kids playing in the one corner we needed to go to. They were probably wondering what we were up to, but we were able to follow a slight path through the woods at the corner and out to the railroad tracks.
This was a railroad yard section still at least five tracks wide, so I wanted to limit the amount of time we were on it. I initially was going to follow roads through this section, but this seemed better.
We continued on the tracks for a little bit until we reached the end of Chelsea Drive parallel with us on the right.

Trout Creek

There was a drainage wash at the corner, which we climbed up so we could walk this parallel road. We continued through the neighborhood and some people looked at us cautiously.

Schuylkill River Trail W

When we got to the end of Chelsea, there was a gate and fence going into a cleared area where I had intended to go. We weren’t going to get through that, so we cut to the left to the railroad tracks again.
I was not expecting the area to be all closed in. On the previous visit through here, we had been on the other side of the tracks following an informal path, and then we came across into this area and did an off trail route that Jason Itell had cut open with his Woodsman’s Pal cutter thing. This time, we had more fencing.

We had to continue a ways down the tracks until there was an opening in the fence, and then we headed up hill and onto a sort of old quarry road. There was a dry wash to the right of us, which I think we used previously, and a lot of piled up dirt debris, but it looked like that would be difficult to get through. We opted instead to follow the quarry road, which took us into a more active looking area with a trailer and several pieces of equipment. I saw some cameras and decided to move out of there rather quickly.

The main access road was still the best way out, and we followed it slightly up hill to a few more machines, and then I cut off to the right to a large slope covered in dense Autumn Olives. After only a short while, I could see the abandoned remnant of the Schuylkill Parkway.
This interesting anomaly was another thing Jason had found and planned into that hike.
There were, I think starting in the 1950s, a lot of highway plans for the Philadelphia region. Interstate 76 and the “Blue Route’ people talk about were supposedly supposed to be part of a red, white, and blue route.

Lunch stop

There was also supposed to be a more major superhighway heading west toward Lancaster. A lot of this was to be upgrades for Route 23.
A lot of the major Rt 23 upgrades were built. A section from downtown Lancaster to Rt 30 was fully built and operational, but another section from Rt 30 east to Rt 772 and a little beyond near Baredale was built with all but pavement, and then left. Overpasses, underpasses, everything is all there and just ready to be completed at any time and it has not happened. They now call this the “Goat Parkway” or “Goat Path”.

LUNCH

One of the more substantial pieces is this one we were walking to. The Schuylkill Parkway would have connected Rt 23 at Rt 202 west toward Rt 422 as I understand as a bypass to the smaller neighborhoods. Much of the route probably would have followed a lot of what the Schuylkill River Trail West follows today, though they hadn’t built those sections. Construction started on the project sometime around 1972, and the exits and on ramps were all completed in Bridgeport, but then they all of a sudden ran out of money at Dartsmouth Hills, where we reached it.

Schuylkill Parkway

The project was dead for many years, and they apparently talked about reviving it again in 2002, but that died out as well.

Abandoned highway end

I suppose with Rt 276 to the south, there isn’t the need for another limited access highway. We walked all different ways down, but I followed the deer runs as best I could to the very end of the concrete where I stepped on. I was very surprised to see this time that it was completely covered with road cones. The previous visit there was none of this, but we could tell that they used the disused highway sections to test their road striping machines. It looked like now they were using it for test driving or something.

WE COME FROM FRANCE

We headed along the highway route, and all picked up a cone to get our group shot near the overpass for the current Rt 23.

Schuylkill Parkway

The section of highway is used informally as a trail, but isn’t officially open. There are no signs saying to keep out of it. It’s just a weird spot that locals known but not a lot of others think about. We continued under the 23 underpass and downhill around the highway curve.
A little bit ahead, we could see the overpass for Rt 202, beyond which the Schuylkill Parkway is used into Bridgeport, and blocked in our direction.

Schuylkill Parkway

We made our way right to the exit lane for the disused road, which is the same way we had gone previously when we hiked this. This time, it was far more overgrown than it was on the other visit. Autumn Olives and such were encroaching on the concrete quite a lot, and we had to go around a lot of it.
We moved on through and passed beneath Rt 202. At that point, I was not clearly remembering what we had done with Jason at this point.

Schuylkill Parkway

I didn’t recognize the spot really, but there was more walking room on the other side.

Bridgeport view on Schuylkill Expressway

There was no sidewalk going along this as I recall, and the exit lane from 202 came in on the left of us. It clearly did not look like where people walk.

Schuylkill Parkway

I had seen what looked like a track right of way on google maps while I was sitting for lunch with Mike, and figured we could follow that direct through, but I did not put two and two together.

Schuylkill Parkway exit

The right of way was actually the Chester Valley Line that I was planning to use all the way back, and I had already hiked it east of here into Bridgeport, but when I did it, it was still active! It’s a trip to think of the passage of time, and how that was in early 2008, now it’s 2020. We walked along Ross Road slightly and I realized that the clearing along the south side of it was the right of way of the track we had followed back then. I’d loved to have gone the rest of the way into Bridgeport.

Schuylkill Parkway exit

Now I can get a ton of then and now photos using my own photos. That would have to wait for another time, however. We turned to the right on the grade, back under Rt 202, and started following the grade as it turned to the south. I was immediately surprised that the grade was so incredibly cleared. In fact, it looked like it was being mowed. There was a large clearing along the left of the right of way first. It was pretty well disturbed and some sort of building probably used to stand there.

Schuylkill Parkway exit

Soon, on the left, there were more ruins of some sort in a lightly wooded area. We moved on a little further down the line, and we skirted a high wall, then crossed a surprisingly decked bridge over Boro Line Road. We were crossing from Bridgeport to King of Prussia. It was here at the bridge that we saw the first sign reading that this was part of the Chester Valley Trail. The plan is that they will connect the missing link with the existing trail to the west, all the way in to Bridgeport.

Chester Valley line in 2008

Ahead, we passed more foundations and a very large clearing to the left. These might have been former rail customers from before they closed the line.

The same scene today...

Soon, we reached Rt 202 in an area with a bunch of retail and crossed. The spot on the highway where the rails had been, were filled over with concrete.

Rt 202 underpass

To the left of the intersection was a large quarry entrance, another likely former rail customer. To the right was what appeared to be the arched remnant of a former limestone kiln. The rail bed continued parallel with Saulin Blvd from here, but it became so badly overgrown that we had to go up and walk the road. The road turned hard right and crossed the rail bed, and we continued straight on the rail bed that was once again clear. We passed through some sparse woods, and then passed beneath Rt 276 as we reached a parking area.

Chester Valley line

It was not as obvious where the railroad was here at first, but then we could see a section of rails in a grade crossing to the lot, followed by another portion of rail, a tie, and tie plate to the left. The tracks used to go straight ahead and across Henderson Road. I would assume this spot was probably the 2010 end of service area and the rest of it beyond has been gone since the 1990s. There was no trail or even a discernible right of way from here, so we crossed over Henderson and started walking Hansen Access Road which ran parallel with the tracks.

Chester Valley Line

The Chester Valley Line would have gone through where Keystone Shops is today. Directly parallel with us was the still active Trenton Cutoff. The Chester Valley Line ran right beside it through this section, but there would be no getting to it. We continued along the road, sandwiched between businesses and Rt 276 PA Turnpike, and eventually cut over to the left a bit to reach some apartments. There was a pedestrian path that connected the end of the Hansen Access Road to the apartments, but we turned to the right because I found a path that went onto an adjacent power line.

Chester Valley line

It took us under the giant iron ladies for a little while, which was a nice break from the roads.

Crossing

When we approached the end of the apartment complex to our left, we crossed Long Road.

Trail scene

This used to be a through road, but it was now blocked off from the development to the right. We continued straight along the power line, and soon came out on Bill Smith Blvd.
Directly across from where we joined was a handsome old stone structure, the home to the King of Prussia Chamber of Commerce.
This was the 1720 Joseph Garrett House, a lovely piece of work. This serpentine stone farm house was once part of the 26 acre Goshenville, now part of Malvern PA.

Joseph Garrett House

The homestead was renovated in 2000, and dedicated in 2001 to Pennsylvania State Senator John H. Ware III.

Rails in place

It said it was a private residence on the signs, so we didn’t bother to go and have a closer look, but it’s pretty cool that it will be directly along the Chester Valley Trail if they do end up using that section of the railroad.
The Chester Valley line went right behind this building.
We turned right on the road, and continued a bit north around a sort of retention pond or swamp area, and then came to Gulph Road. We crossed here, and then continued on King of Prussia Road, which made its way back over to the edge of the Chester Valley Line to the south. In the woods, Mike noticed there were still tracks on it! He went off into the woods to be a purist, but it didn’t last long because the weeds got to be crap.
We walked a little further ahead and the King of Prussia Park and Ride was on the right. The trail started up adjacent to this and followed the right of way directly at first.

Chester Valley Trail and Trenton Cutoff

We were fast approaching Rt 76, and there is no rail bridge over this. The trail turns to the right and climbs up over a new pedestrian bridge over the highway.

Group mirror

Next to us, there is a new style through truss bridge carrying the former Trenton Cutoff of the Pennsylvania Railroad. It has good railings and walkway along the trusses which is really pretty cool. Justin salivated at the look of it, but it would be hard to get up because the ladder doesn’t reach the bottom rungs. Clearly someone brings a ladder with them when they go up.
On the other side of the pedestrian bridge, the trail does not exactly follow the rail bed. That appears to have been taken over by an on ramp to the eastbound PA Turnpike.

Superman booth

We continued past one of those giant areas with the electrical forms, and spotted an old Superman style telephone booth inside.
A little past this, the trail started to follow an abandoned exit lane onto the PA Turnpike on ramp. This exit lane appears to be the former railroad bed. It followed it only briefly, and then cut to the left into some woods. The trail goes over closer to the Trenton Cutoff again, and then turns west before passing beneath Warren Road.

Old on ramp/rail bed

It then heads back to the north to a trail parking area. The rail bed is still slightly north from here.
The trail turned left and paralleled Devon Park Drive. We crossed at the next crosswalk, and soon after crossed on and off ramps to Rts 76 and 202. The trail stayed along the road just a little longer, and then turned right parallel with Old Eagle School Road, past an industrial site.
When we got over parallel with Rt 202, we turned left and beneath the Old Eagle School Road bridge and regained the railroad bed.

Mail training

We remained immediately parallel with 202 for a while.
Soon, we passed beneath Valley Road and started paralleling Swedesford Road.
We passed an interesting thing on the left from here: it was a sort of cone obstacle course with tons of mail boxes set up. This was a sort of training course for mail men! There were mail trucks all parked around. It was exactly what one might expect a mail delivery person might be tested with.

Contention Lane bridge

There were usually homes to the left, and businesses and such to the right, but not so noticeable when we were in a cut.

Hawk

We crossed a pedestrian bridge over Valley Forge Road next, and there were sometimes very high walls blocking either from roads, businesses or residences. At one of the open spots form it, we stopped to watch a Hawk for a bit.
We passed an abandoned former bridge site with abutments in place ahead, and then reached the crossing under Contention Lane, which I’d seen in the distance from the start. I think the bridge was built in the 1960s, so it’s not terribly old, it’s just cool to see a bridge still made just about totally of wood. They’re not nearly as common these days.

Chester Valley Line

Just a little past Contention Lane, the path we had come down on went up to the right.

Contention Lane bridge

We followed it to get back to our starting point with no problem, and we were finished before dark!
The mileage had gone above what I was anticipating because of a few changes I’d made to the route, in Valley Forge to stay more secluded, with the abandoned buildings, in King of Prussia for food, and some just after that. I don’t think anyone hated it too much. We did probably 22 miles, although one of us came up with just 20.
To finish off the day, I headed down to the Radnor Trail which was a former trolley line, and tried to get some then and now photos along the route.

Trenton Cutoff bridge

I have several more to get, and I ran probably another two miles or more to try to get them before dark. I successfully got them and we were on our way home.
Like so many of the other areas, there is a ton more to do in this area. There are still ten miles of the Chester Valley Trail to complete, and the Valley Creek we followed for so much of the time has a huge collection of greenways along it. There are many little parks that can be put together to make some great hikes. There’s just not enough time in a lifetime to do them all.

HAM