9/23/12 Brecknock Township to Birdsboro with Derek Baker, Gregg Hudis, Michele Valerio, Carol and Rob Creamer, John Bradford Ladutko, Paula Uhrin, Chris "Cupcake" Kroschinski, Darlene Perez, and Ariel
The group on the Horse-Shoe Trail in central Berks County
My next hike would be another in the series to complete the Horse-Shoe Trail. The trail, which was first cleared in the 1930s was an effort to connect the Appalachian Trail to Philadelphia. The present route connects with the AT on Stony Mountain and begins in Valley Forge. At this point, all of my hikes are connected, but I had only been missing the HT sections from Stony Valley to the AT, the section over Governor Dick Hill in Lebanon County, and the longest section between Denver and Scarlet Mills PA. This hike would complete a big section from the Brecknock Township Municipal Building with Scarlet Mills, and also lead us into exploring Birdsboro Waters, a preserve I'd only barely been in.In the beginning, I passed out Circuit City uniforms to most of the group. I had visited a thrift store called Thrift RX in Washington earlier in the week and found a bag sale for $7, and a lot of old Circuit City employee shirts, so I grabbed them all with this in mind. We wore the shirts all day which made for funny reactions.We shuttled as few cars as possible from the Quest Diagnostic lot in Birdsboro to the beginning, dropping Cupcake's car off along the way near Furnace Road at a church. I'd parked at Birdsboro in this place before when I'd done a loop hike including French Creek and Schuykill River Trail in late 2010.My original plan was to park at the municipal building, but there was a new trail that connected to the Horse-Shoe Trail from the parking area that had been completed as an Eagle Scout project in 2010! The last parking space even said "Horse-Shoe Trail Parking". This was very cool to have, and helped us avoid a bad road walk.We followed the well built trail up hill to a field. The blazes were standard, but they were sloppily done. The trail led across a field and then over a power line to connect with HT Trail. We turned right on this one. I told Ariel how to read the trail markings in order to continue, and she stayed near to the front a lot.The trail came out to the power line, then led us down hill through some really nice, high canopy woods. The woods were so much different than the previous week up in Tobyhanna and Gouldsboro, and the trail less rocky.The trail descended out to Maple Grove Road, turned right, then left again into more woods and along the edges of fields. The trail alternated between woods and fields a bit, which was a nice change. It never really got very boring. We crossed Gebhart School Road, and Speck Road. Between we crossed a utility line with a bit of a view to the north, and it followed a driveway for a bit.The trail also followed some nice woods roads. We soon descended to Sleepy Hollow Athletic Club. This was a beautiful grassy spot with pavilions and such. Gregg brough bread and drinks to share with everyone which was great. We had a nice break and relaxed for a while here near a stream and a little pond.After our break, we continued on the trail, which was not so well marked, into the woods and to an abandoned cabin. It had an old stove in the one corner. There was a lady coming down the trail ahead, so we hurriedly got out. This was the only other "hiker" we'd see along the entire way until Birdsboro Waters. Everyone else we saw was just on road sections or something. We did see a guy picking up his motorcycle at the Athletic Club.The lady we met was very nice, walking with a big black Rottweiler; she told us she was the maintainer and that she took a brush hog through twice a year. It was a nice section. We followed the trail, on an old woods road down across a brook, then up hill along it for a ways, across once more, and along the edge of a field before emerging again on Allegheneyville Road. We turned left on the road which took us across Rt 476 and into the village of Plowville. This was a quaint little town with just a few buildings, some very old and of stone construction. There was a guy who had some sort of paint business, with a truck several years old that Rob commented looked new due to the "awesome paint job". He and his neighbors also had well painted mail boxes!We continued across Rt 10, and the trail followed the pleasant Buck Hollow Road gradually down hill. On the left was the lovely old Plowville School House, with a giant old Maple tree in the yard, and a rotten sign. It was now a private residence.The road walking we had to do here was over two miles, which kind of sucked. The cars coming up and down this road were going way too fast. I explored what appeared to be an abandoned driveway on the left, thinking it might lead to an abandoned house, but after a couple switch backs and wandering up a bit, I didn't find anything. I didn't have the time to go further. We continued down to the bottom of the hill, and there was a lovely 18th century stone home on the left, followed by another smaller one. The trail turned here from Buck Hollow Road up hill on Overlook Road, a new development road that was really out of place compared to everything else we saw. It was a steep, long walk up this road, with a bit of a view when we got toward the top. Derek and I of course smoked everyone on that as usual, but Paula managed to keep up really well. When we got to the crest of the hill we took a nice break on a shady spot in the grass.On the way up, there were a few people out and about; one guy with his kid were driving around on a Kawasaki Mule while another was cutting fallen trees with a chain saw in front of two McMansions. The kid asked his dad if we were hikers or something. They were saying to each other "is there a trail around here or something?" as we went by. I can only imagine with Derek, Paula, and I up front what they'd have thought when the rest of the group in tow showed up wearing Circuit City shirts, thinking "aren't those all out of business"? One of the guys asked Paula "Did you do something wrong? Why are you walking here". It's amazing to me that they live in this place but have no idea that their street is the route of a significant 140 mile long hiking trail.After our break, we continued on and looked for where the trail turns off. This got a bit confusing due to the new development going in. It was right near a house for sale, which the guys laughed about when Brad had a paper. We considered going in for the open house. Maybe they'd have had food.The trail turned left by a giant pile of dirt. There was a sign there that read no walking, no dogs, no hunting, etc. It was ironically on the same tree as the yellow trail blaze. Carol and I went up a big pile of dirt to see if we could see any more blazes. There was a mom and her kid with a tent, apparently who had just camped but lived nearby, and she said the trail always confuses her in this area. We managed to find it following the woods road behind the pile of dirt down hill, and then right on another into deeper woods. The trail continued on a nice level lane woods road or foot path, maybe sort of alternating. It eventually began to lose elevation fast in a deeply eroded old woods road. It then came down to parallel Furnace Road where Cupcake, Darlene, and Ariel cut out to their cars nearby.The rest of us followed the trail just barely into the woods from Furnace Road, then crossed Hay Creek Road onto Sparrow Lane in Scarlet Mills. This nice gravel road led out across a creek with cows in fields along the edge. There is a little settlement of old buildings up the lane. Derek said "Are you serious? The trail just like goes right up past these people's houses?". Indeed, these trails do some strange things. This was one of my favorite spots on the trail for the day. There were some young guys working on one of the houses, kind of miserable, but friendly. It's nice to know there is an understanding when it comes to the trail going through. We followed the road where it became sort of abandoned beyond the houses to the bridge over the former Reading Railroad. I had now connected this hike with previous ones I'd done. I'd also followed the railroad several miles in both directions. We continued and crossed over Mullen Hollow Road, then ascended for a bit. Carol decided to turn back and wait on the road to get picked up later. The rest of us made our way to Birdsboro Waters where side trails broke off. White blazes went left on a woods road first, then continued straight where Horse-Shoe Trail went right. A light green blazed trail went left here, so we followed it up hill and through a gully to connect with white again.We followed a red and white blazed trail to the right but it led us farther from where we wanted to be, so we turned back and bushwhacked on an old indistinct road which led us eventually out to another part of the white trail. We turned right on that and it led us to the Birdsboro Reservoir where we needed to be. We walked onto the access road to see the reservoir where we found an Amish or Mennonite couple having a sweet moment on the dam. I respectfully didn't want to disturb their courting, so I ushered everyone back to the woods and where the trail met the access road and we headed down hill on the road along the outlet. The couple certainly must have heard Derek and I with our pre-pubescent sounding hollers of "OooOOooOOhhHH MyyYYYyyYY GooOOooOOoooDdd!!!" the whole way down the hill. John Bradford would sometimes join in with a respectful emulation.We passed a nice old dam on the way down, and then reached Hay Creek Road, mostly abandoned here. We followed it to the right, and started seeing other hikers and climbers go by. Most had climbing gear on because it's allowed in the old quarry areas in the park. We passed the active quarry area, the old rail bridge abutment I'd been to previously, and then reached the wire bridge crossing of the creek. We took our time to cross here, always a fun time because it's such an off the way bridge. There were a few others in the area also crossing. Three Polish girls had been there climbing and crossed in flip flops, all at the same time on the wire. Luckily it did not break, though they probably weighed 90 lbs each.We followed the abandoned road ahead, and reached a second rope bridge crossing where the road became used again, near an abandoned house that was all boarded off. I didn't think this rope bridge was there previously on my visit, but it was cool that it was there now. John Bradford tried to cross on stones, after I ran across then without getting wet. He slipped in. After watching the Polish girls cross, he opted to try to cross the rocks again, but fell completely in, much to everyone's amusement.We continued along the creek through a Birdsboro town park. They had replaced some of the awesome old metal playground with crappy plastic garbage since our last visit, but they still had some of the older dangerous stuff.
We passed beneath Hay Creek Road on the path there, then walked the tracks to the north. There were screenings between the ties which led me to believe they may want people to walk on it, but we can't be sure. We got to town, passed the old station, then walked beyond back to the parking lot where we'd met in the morning. Paula did the finishing car shuttle to get Rob and John Bradford back at the end.We'd finished this one in pretty good time, and then Derek, Gregg, Michele, and I who carpooled together stopped to eat at a little diner where our waitress couldn't quite figure out what we were about."I know you don't all work at Circuit City" she said to me. It sparked a funny conversation.Although there weren't really any views, I think I liked this section of the Horseshoe Trail better than the other previous section I had done. I can't wait to finish the trail altogether. Only three more sections to go!
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