Hike #616; Mason Dixon Trail; Chadds Ford to White Clay Creek/London Tract

3/11/12 Mason Dixon Trail; Chadds Ford to White Clay Creek/London Tract with Shelly Janes, Jack Lowry, Jason Itell, Megan Reid, Carol and Rob Creamer, Brad Ladutko, Jennifer Knepper, and Todd

Unfortunately, facebook has lost the original journal for this hike and I'm forced to rewrite it.

Something like this one is really hard to do because there was just so much going on on this one.

So I absolutely love the Mason-Dixon Trail. The trail, proposed by a man named Yost in the 1960s as I recall, connects the Brandywine Trail in Chadds Ford PA, where we had already walked somewhat recently to its southern end vicinity, with the Appalachian Trail at Whiskey Springs in the South Mountain area.
I'd still be working on doing this entire trail ten years later, but I'd focus on covering a whole lot of it.

We met at the end point at the London Tract in White Clay Creek Preserve. The White Clay Creek has two parks in both Delaware and Pennsylvania.
Contrary to popular belief, the trail does NOT follow the Mason-Dixon Line, but rather parallels it much of the time.
Our starting point was near the eastern terminus at Chadds Ford, and I believe we parked at the museum or something just east of the crossing of the Brandywine Creek on Fairville Road.
Some of the trail has been rerouted since the time we did it, so I'll eventually have to go back to the east end and do it again. It was a nice enough trip to do for sure.
The Mason-Dixon Trail and Brandywine Trail both followed the same route for the first bit. Blue and white blazes were coaligned and we soon entered the woods with an enormous white Oak tree.

The trail meandered through woods, over a hill, and then followed a section of the active railroad tracks, which I think was rerouted. I might have had something to do with that, because I posted photos of the route on the Metrotrails page, and a lot of railroad employees got overly pissed off that the trail followed the tracks to get over a creek.
I hope the section wasn't abandoned, because it follows a really nice puncheon area.
Eventually, we came to a spot where the Mason Dixon Trail broke off to the right. I remember it going uphill along the edge of a field, and there were some great pastoral views and giant homes. There were huge trees everywhere, and Jack was playing his carbon fiber guitar the entire way. 
The character of the trail is just great, passing giant boulders, thorugh woods, over a creek, along fields, and then we came out to Cossart Road.
The road walk wasn't bad. A tiny road without a line is usually as good to walk as any trail.
The trail turned left on equally pleasant Fairville Road and passed through a little settlement I assume was Fairville with some historic buildings. 
We passed an old school house and some old stone buildings, and then turned left on Spring Mill Road. We followed that to Burnt Mill Road and turned right, through more pleasant farm land.
The trail turned right on Old Kennett Pike, and then left on 9 Gates Road.
The trail turned into the woods on a reroute in this section I remembered was not on my map and guide for the trail. I think the first part might have been called the State Line Preserve and I think it was part of the Kennett Township Land Trust. It went closer to the state line, and passed through beautiful forest with giant trees. It was particularly interesting that there were huge beech trees not covered in carvings. I'm sure that's probably different now.
I recall one preserve was Auburn Heighs Preserve which I suppose is now Auburn State Park on the Delaware side. The trail went through some wide open fields and went very close to the state line following the arc boundary. There were little concrete or stone post markers out through the middle of fields denoting the state line.
We came off of the property to the road next to a giant victorian mansion and the Marshall Steam museum. There was so much here I was blown away. We could spend a lot more time there. We didn't even get to seeing the museum, or the miniature train they have running through a tunnel, although Shelly went into the tunnel.
We followed a road past the old Yorklyn Paper Mills which looked abandoned, along the Red Clay Creek, and then out along Benge Road past the DuPont School.
The trail followed roads down through Hockessin, past a cemetery and historic Friends Meeting House,  and then through Swift Park which had some paved trails. 
The trail followed some railroad tracks, and then crossed Valley Road. It then followed the railroad grade west. This was part of the Landenberg Branch of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. Another one to come back to and explore. It continued to Landenberg where it had a junction with the former Pomeroy Railroad, which the Mason Dixon Trail follows further south.
The trail turned through a development and then reached Southwood Road where it turned left.
The trail took us on Buttonwood Road to Broad Run Road. I have to look at maps more closely, because we went along Somerset Lake, and the old railroad might have crossed within view on a causeway, and I didn't know what I was looking at.
From there, we headed into the White Clay Creek Preserve, the PA side.
The trail cut into the woods and soon followed part of the Newark and Pomeroy Railroad, nicknamed the "Pumpsie Doodle". It later became part of the Pennsylvania Railroad.
On the final stretch into the London Tract, the trail was on and off of the old railroad grade. That switched sides of the creek and all of the bridges are gone. It is amazing that this creek, which is obviously prone to flooding, had so many bridges and grades within the flood plain. It was no wonder it was abandoned early. Even the bridge piers we saw were sinking into the surface of the creek. 

I really loved this section of the trail, and there are so many more side trails that I could probably milk at least three hikes out of this covering all of the connections. That will be the plan as the series on the Mason Dixon Trail from the west reaches other points of interest.