Hike #1041; Manada Hill to Palmdale

Hike #1041; Manada Hill to Palmdale

5/27/17 Manada Hill to Palmdale with Jason Itell, Megan Itell, Justin Gurbisz, Brittany Audrey, Brandan Jermyn, John Discuillo, Noelle Bramblett, and Jason and Megan’s friend (UGH I forget her name).

Our next hike would be another of those returning to long trails I’d never finished deals.
Jason and I did the first leg of the Horse-Shoe Trail back in late 2008 out of Valley Forge into Chester County. I absolutely loved the diversity of the route, so much so that the following Spring we did a longer second section.

Map of the HST sections

I really love these weird trails. I do love the back woods, stay away from public trails, but these weird ones that go through farms, through people’s back yards, towns, historic sites...they are some of the most interesting to me. That’s why I immediately fell in love with the Horse-Shoe Trail.

Henry N. Woolman

The Horse-Shoe Trail owes much of it’s existence to a man named Henry Woolman.
Woolman, a business man with the Supplee-Willis-Jones Company, and before the merger with the previous, General Manager of Woolman Dairies. He was a graduate and trustee for the University of Pennsylvania, and through these connections certainly would have had some some social pull.
In 1926, Woolman purchased the Cressbrook Farm in the northeastern corner of Tredyffrin Township. An avid equestrian, he would spend his free time riding the many trails through area hills.
That same year, Woolman embarked on a two week horseback riding trip through the Great Smokey Mountains, through North Carolina and eastern Tennessee along the Appalachian Trail. Between 1926 and 1930, Woolman would embark on three more trips to the Great Smokey Mountains with hopes of having the Appalachian Trail opened to equestrian as well as foot traffic.
"Gradually the idea germinated in my mind that here at home we could have a little Smoky Mountain Trail and although the depths of the valleys were in hundreds of feet rather than thousands, the colors of the sunrises and sunsets were just as gorgeous. There were ridges and ridges stretching across Chester, Berks, Lancaster, Lebanon and Dauphin counties connecting Valley Forge and the Appalachian Trail." Woolman said of the beginnings of the Horse-Shoe Trail Club.

Horse-Shoe Trail insignia

By 1934, Woolman had ridden his favorite horse, Hackaway, along many of the woods roads, and in farther areas we explored by car.
In March of that year, he called a meeting of the University Club in Philadelphia to discuss the organization of a club that would build, mark, and maintain the trail. Many different organizations and officials from both the state and clubs attended, and appointed Woolman temporary Chairman.
The remainder of 1934 was spent locating, blazing, and blazing the trail with yellow painted horseshoes (which was later abandoned for standard paint, though occasionally an old horseshoe can be found along the trail).
"Let us work for a trail in the East, free from the automobile, without gas stations, billboards or hot dog stands on the entire length of 120 miles, dedicated as a parkway from Valley Forge to Manada Gap for hikers, riders and nature lovers." Woolman said of the new trail.
The club was officially incorporated and the trail opened in 1934-35.

At our start point

While I have no problems with hot dog stands and the occasional gas station where we can get some food, the world has changed more than the trail has. The amenities are not all that bad.
The trail used to end at Manada Gap, which was just north of where we would start this hike, but the Appalachian Trail was rerouted from there north into Saint Anthony’s Wilderness as a result of activity in Fort Indiantown Gap Military Reservation.
I met the group at the little park in Palmdale where the trail passes through, and we shuttled to Manada Hill, at the crossing of Interstate 81 is.

New HST reroute

Of course, I had done this section of the Horse-Shoe Trail before. I backpacked through from Saint Anthony’s Wilderness to the Conestoga Trail with Jillane back in 2010, but since that time the trail has been significantly rerouted in this area. It used to be the worst road walk of the entire trail, but now almost all of that had been moved off road, except in hunting season.

An old mill, now house

I chose Manada Hill as the start point because I knew there were a lot of places to park and a lot of businesses. I picked up Brandan, Justin, and Brittany in the morning to head west, and so I shuttled to the start too. We parked at a gas station a ways further than the others shuttling, and had to re-convene along the highway near the 81 overpass. We then turned to the left on Jonestown Road heading to the east. The trail did not join this route until the intersection with Manada Bottom Road.
The road route was still nice, with farm lands and an old mill turned house along the way.

Manada Creek

We continued on Jonestown to a right turn on South Mill Road. We continued south across Rt 22, the busiest highway grade crossing on the entire Horse-Shoe Trail (and the only busy crossing when the trail was completed in ‘35). The trail remained on the road as it came very near to the Manada Creek again.
The water looked so inviting and I just wanted to get in badly, but my leg was still not supposed to get wet and the potential for bone infection I had been told was great, so I actually did refrain from this.

Stream crossing

We came to the intersection with Carlson Road soon. I recalled to everyone how Jillane and I had met with a man named Greg George here, and he invited us on to his farm further down the trail to get some water and pet his cats. With the reroute, that is no longer the trail route. Now, the trail turns right on Carlson Road instead of left, and immediately crosses the Manada Creek. It then goes immediately to the left on Douglas Road and continues along side the creek. It was getting brutally hot out, and I made the mistake of wearing a suit.

Too much suit

Before a bend in the road, the trail turned off to the right and started heading gradually up hill into a section of nice woods. I was pretty happy to see this going through in the shade.
We made our way through a section of woods, and descended for a bit to cross over a small stream. The trail gained a bit more elevation again and passed through more young forest before emerging on a utility line clearing. I couldn’t figure out where the trail was going, and it was a beaten path along the right of way both left and right. We tried going to the left first, which went over a small hill and within view of Douglas Road. I had assumed that was it, but we were seeing no blazes. We turned back and I couldn’t even spot where we’d come out of the woods. John went the other way and didn’t see any blazes over the utility line either. It was then that I spotted them directly across the line, through high grass and into scrubby woods on the other side. Justin and Brittany laid in the field until the others caught up.
It was too insanely hot for my suit by this time, so I put the jacket in my bag, and then couldn’t deal with the pants either. They too got wrapped up and I finished the hike in my white shirt and boxer shorts.

Utility crossing confusion

After the utility line section, there was a good amount of weeds, but then we got to a nice old pasture type of area where the trail was easy. There was a parallel farm lane below it to the left, so it would have been easy to lose it if we weren’t watching for the blazes closely.
We passed through the wooded section to come out on Douglas Road again farther down from where we left it. The trail turned right on the road to cross a brook on the road bridge, then went left into more fields.

Horse-Shoe Trail

More pretty woods were ahead, in a swath of land between fields. We sometimes came to open areas, sometimes were out in the field edges. It was overall very pleasant.
The trail eventually emerged on Devonshire Heights Road and turned to the left. It only went a short distance on this across the bridge over a small tributary of Manada Creek, then went left again through a section of fields interspersed with trees immediately parallel with the road.
We moved off away from the road slightly again at a hil, and headed toward a fence.

Balsbought Cemetery

Just beyond was a very interesting old cemetery situated on a steep hill in a section of woods.
This was the Balsbought Family Cemetery, which was in use between 1773 and 1857. It was restored by the Milton Hershey School in 2010.
We checked out some of the old graves here and had a nice little break. It was a strangely situated cemetery on this weird steep slope, but a very nice spot to sit on the wall. From this point, the trail headed down below the cemetery, and eventually returned to Devonshire Heights Road.

We turned to the left on the road, which took us across the Manada Creek. The blazes were not totally obvious as to where we should go, but then I spotted a turning one when I looked back on the far side of the bridge. The trail went along a field edge to the south, and then into a well mowed grove within tall shady trees, much bigger ones than we’d been through a bit earlier. The main part of the grove was a beautiful spot with picnic benches and grass, and a lovely section of the creek. Carefully, I went in the creek to cool off a bit, without getting my bad shin too wet.

I had already had trouble with my bandages at the start of this hike, and it was heavily joked about that Jason and Megan’s friend that came along gave me a tampon that I could put on it backwards and tape it. It was actually a big help!
We had a nice break beside the creek before moving on along the trail in a very pleasant section.
The trail generally followed the Manada Creek, but we found yet another reroute I was not expecting, which came up differently than my rerouted map. This made it even better.

Newer reroute...

Rather than following the route out to Level Road, the trail was continuing to the south, through nice woods as well as some field sections.

HST in fields

The trail weaved back and forth between little sections of woods, and then right out to culvtivated fields with lines of corn growing in them. We carefully walked through the first row of crops heading south, and crossed over a small tributary. Beyond, we reached the end of the field where the trail turned to the left. The group had gotten pretty segmented, and so we waited only a few moments until the first of them came into view to move on. The trail followed a nice mowed path beside the fields up hill past a lovely old stone farm house, then emerged onto Rt 215, Sand Beach Road.

We regrouped at the road, and some of the group made a wrong turn and started coming up through the yard of the house just beyond. The blazes were kind of hard to discern because it looked like the trail could have been at either side of the fence line.
From here, rather than turning right on the road, the trail went straight across and beside a big white barn. It then turned right along the edges of more cultivated fields parallel with Sand Beach Road heading to the south, toward crossing of the Swatara Creek.

Old covered bridge at Sand Beach

The Swatara Creek crossing is the same as it was when I had hiked the Horse-Shoe Trail before. In fact, the entire trail route we would be following was the same route, although there were some changes that of course tend to happen in natural settings along the way.
The area of the crossing was a town known as Sand Beach. It was not only where the Manada Creek met the larger Swatara Creek, it was where the Union Canal, which was planned in the 1760s, passed through on it’s route to connect the Susquehanna and Schuykill Rivers. President George Washington turned the first shovel himself for the construction of the historic canal.

Very little history can be found on the area of Sand Beach. I found some stuff on a covered bridge that used to span Manada Creek, and that it tragically burned in 1966. I could find very little history on the Union Canal however.
It has always amazed me that in New Jersey, our two canals, the Morris and the Delaware and Raritan, are both either protected or extremely well documented, but some of the Pennsylvania Canal, Union Canal, Schuykill Canal, and others have incredibly obscure sections that no one seems to know anything about.
The old route of the Horse-Shoe Trail used to go along a section of the Union Canal in the Hersey Farms property just prior to the Swatara crossing, but that was eliminated through the new reroute.

Union Canal

I had hiked that section of the canal before, and I tried to see if there were any remnants I could see from the road this time, but there was really nothing.
Just down stream from Sand Beach was the canal named town, Union Deposit. Really the only thing even mentioning the canal in the area is the closely parallel Canal Street.
We crossed over the bridge and turned left on Swatara Road following the old trail route toward the next bit of the Hersey Farms property. I remembered it well through this area, but things didn’t seem right.

HST at Sand Beach

The trail was supposed to turn abruptly to the right, up hill away from the road pretty early on, but we could find nothing to say it turned there. I thought that maybe the trail had been rerouted, but then I did find a turn blaze along the road somewhere on a utility pole.
There was a rather new house there, with a kid playing in the yard. He was yelling something out to us, but I’m not sure what. It was obvious that hardly anyone walks this section of trail. I simply led everyone on the way I remembered the trail should go up the hill.

HST south of Sand Beach

There were no blazes to speak of going up, just a view out over the Swatara Valley I was sure I remembered. It was clear enough to follow for a bit, and soon I saw the Horse-Shoe Trail wooden post.

Obscure post

For anyone following the trail southeast, this might be a spot they would get lost because it really doesn’t look like a trail at all, and there is nothing to blaze.
Just ahead, the maintenance road that the trail used to follow up hill was no more. The trail simply went straight across the wheat field toward the wood line beyond.
Brandan found a random lawn chair out in the middle of the crops, so we knew someone had come this way, and the trail route was just barely worn down as if one or two people might have already walked through.

Horse-Shoe Trail

We made our way through some nice woods heading to the east. The group stared to segment here. Justin and Brittany were having trouble, so I stayed back to try to keep them moving, then went ahead to the rest of the group who waited at the crossing with Swatara Road.

Milton Hershey's grave

We made our way across here, where the trail goes through someone’s yard, then into some more woods. We emerged at a woods road and then another field section which led us south to Swatara Road again. The trail turned left on the road to the entrance of the Hershey Cemetery where I regrouped everyone to visit the grave of Milton Hershey.

Milton Hershey in 1905

Milton S. Hershey was born in Derry Township where the famous chocolate manufacturer is located, but he started his life as a Mennonite farm boy who was not educated beyond fourth grade due to the farm obligations.
His family helped him become involved in confectionary, and he learned how to make caramel in Denver. He travleled the country somewhat, and had failed business attempts in the caramel industry including in NY City in the late 1800s.
Hershey founded the Lancaster Caremel Company in 1883 and found great success with it. He sold that company for one million dollars and started the Hershey Chocolate Company in 1900.
Milk chocolate at the time was something considered to be only for the rich, but Hershey strove to perfect a formula. He had plenty of milk in Lancaster County to work with, and the first Hershey Bar was produced in 1900. The first Hershey Kisses came in 1907, and Hershey bars with almonds came the following year. Hershey Chocolate became the first nationally marketed product of it’s kind.
Because Hershey and his wife could not have children, they focused on philanthropy and started the Hershey Industrial School, which controlled the majority of his assets.

At Milton Hershey's grave

Hershey died in 1945 at the age of 88, just one year after leaving the board. Due to his charitable work, he was honored with his own stamp in the Great Americans series.
His grave is a beautiful wide monument in the very center of the Hershey Cemetery, up a long parkway style drive. The site overlooks his namesake town, plant, and park.

Hershey's grave

We continued on from here, where the trail parallels Swatara Road atop a hill. Brandan started walking the road instead of the trail, and ended up having to bushwhack to get back up to us. I only wanted to keep the group together as far as getting the group shot at Hershey’s grave. From there I tried to keep track of everyone, but wasn’t so worried about everyone finished at once.

Hershey sign and trail turn

The trail emerged at Laurdermilch Road and turned to the left. It continued a short distance to the billboard leaving Hershey. There, it turned right onto an industrial lane. Justin, Brittany, and Brandan were falling far behind, and the others went ahead not wanting to deal with them (I can’t blame them!).
Brandan lobbed a snow stake he found there and got one of the workers angry at him. I tried to hang back with them for a bit to be sure that they caught the trail blazes off the industrial area and to the field edges again. Justin and Brittany were too far behind, and Brandan said he’d hold back for them. I decided I would just finish the hike and pick them up wherever they got to by the end.

Nice crosswalk. Smh.

The trail passed through a swath of woods after fields, then came out to Lingle Road and turned to the right. We got a laugh at the crosswalk at Hershey Park Drive, where they had put a bed of flowers directly over the crosswalk.

Horse-Shoe Trail

We crossed over the railroad tracks and then turned right soon after onto the trail, which follows a farm access lane and power line directly across wide fields heading to the west. It turned parallel with the Hershey Country Club, and made it’s way out near the main parking area for the same.
The others had made their way out to Lingle, turned right, and then took a break along side the a business next to the railroad bridge. I talked to Justin on the phone, and they were just going to take a break there.
We paused briefly when we got to the trail head by the golf course on Derry Road, then turned left on the blazed trail route.

Horse Shoe Trail in Palmdale area

The trail followed the road a bit to McKinley Ave, then turned right. It continued across the chocolate colored Chocolate Ave, and then right again on Caracas Ave. This led us just a little ways to the entrance of Palmdale Park where our cars were parked.
I got a ride back to my car and hurried back to see if I could find the others.
They had continued on the trail route and ended up at the shady spot at the golf course parking lot where I picked them up.
When we started driving, Brandan realized he didn’t have his backpack. We drove back to where they took a break off of Lingle, and he went down and looked but could not find it. We also double checked the golf course lot. I assumed he must have sat it in the field when he was waiting for Brittany and Justin a while back on Hershey Farms land. If that’s the case, hopefully someone will find it and he’ll eventually get his ID and stuff back.
We headed from there to finish off our trip with some delicious food at Sheetz. At that point, Justin and Brandan were too knocked out for anything, so just Brittany and I went in and found stuff to pig out on.

Leg progress

I managed the long drive home myself, and Brandan, Justin, and Brittany slept through pretty much the entire ride. I was wide awake fortunately, so I didn’t need them to keep my mind busy.
Also, the pain in my bad shin had subsided quite a lot. Every morning was terribly painful getting started, because it would throb, but it was now starting to scab over again and felt much better.
The really strange thing at around this time particularly was that the new skin that filled the giant open would was incredibly sensitive. It was in fact so sensitive that the feeling of toughing it was almost addicted. The euphoric feeling could become almost irresistible. I would constantly want to gently run my ginger tips across the new skin. It was itchy, but only when I touched it. Once I started itching, the pleasure was so great that I would never want to stop. I’ve never felt anything like it before. I had to refrain from doing so because the new skin would cut very easily and start bleeding again.
I dropped Brittany and Justin off at Brittany’s parents, and Brandan off at his, and was on my way home. Fortunately the day wasn’t too much a mess, and we still finished up within very reasonable time.
I now have only one hike remaining necessary to complete the entire Horse-Shoe Trail, which hopefully I will get to doing before the end of the year.