Hike #1603: Middle Creek to Denver

Hike #1603: 4/28/24 Middle Creek to Denver with Jenny Tull, Kirk Rohn, Professor John DiFiore, Jennifer Grove Schaeffer, Dan Lurie, Nicole Hahn, Conrad Blease, Alyssa ?, Jim "Mr. Buckett" Mathews, Eric Pace, and Everen

This next trip would be the next in the series in the Pennsylvania Highlands, which had consistently been pretty interesting. 

I planned this one to include the trails of Middle Creek Wildlife Management Area in addition to the Horse-Shoe Trail, on which the Pennsylvania Highlands Trail is superimposed.

Of course, I had done the entire Horse-Shoe Trail before, but as part of my giant triangle on the 911 National Memorial Trail, I have sort of committed to doing all of the major trails that connect between that 1,400 mile loop, even if it means doing the ones I'd already done another time.

I'm pretty good to sticking with things once I commit to them, and even though I have some issues with some of the trail planning community just about everywhere at this time, it is still a good opportunity to promote all of the work in between.

I'd been involved with the Highlands Trail for years. Originally proposed by the New York/New Jersey Trail Conference, as a trail to travel the spine of the geological province known as the Highlands connecting the Hudson River with the Delaware River.

This was one of the very first trail projects I became involved in, and it was completed between its two original points in the Summer of 2009 with a celebration in Riegelsville PA.

Appalachian Mountain Club took the lead on extending the trail into the Highlands of Pennsylvania, but it got really no traction for years. It also didn't have exactly the same character in Pennsylvania because it followed so much rail trail.

I decided that I would include that back in my series at this time because so much of it was stuff I could get the stroller through pretty easily. I figured I'd have a go at it and as long as it wasn't terribly tough, we'd be okay.

When I started on the Mason-Dixon Trail section, Ev wasn't born yet so it didn't matter. The Highlands Trail follows that from the Appalachian Trail at Whiskey Springs to the Susquehanna River. 

I skipped re-doing more Mason-Dixon Trail after Ev was born, and switched to the Highlands route, and it was pretty good right up until the last one we did up to Middle Creek. That section got pretty tough with a lot of climbing.

Fortunately, on that last hike, Ev was able to walk 1000 ft of elevation, on three separate ascents. With that, it made it easier for me to carry his stroller.

I skipped doing any more of that for a while due to weather or whatever. The last time I planned to do this particular section, it was a rainy day and I opted to stay down in the valley on another section on my "to do" list.

This hike ended up being one of the toughest I'd done in a very long time due to the terrain, and the timing with Ev not being right for covering the rough trail.

Because I had so many other trails and such to try to cover out in the Pennsylvania Dutch country of Pennsylvania, I didn't want to post more than one out there a month, and so the PA Highlands took a back seat to so many other things I had planned. This hike kept getting shelved.

The weather was getting warmer, and the leaves were popping, so I wanted to do one more hike in the PA Highlands before it got so warm that every hike would require a swimming spot (a sort of rule for me on warm weather hikes).

It looked like the weather was going to work out just right for this one. I planned for the trip to end in Denver Pa, at the Denver Memorial Park where I'd finished one of the previous backup hikes to this one for inclement weather.

From there, a group of us including Jenny, Jen, John, Dan, and Kirk shuttled to our starting point in Middle Creek Wildlife Management Area. Conrad, Alyssa, and Nicole met up with us there.

The centerpiece of this tract of land is the Middle Creek Reservoir.

Middle Creek Reservoir dam was built 1971-72 and was constructed by Pennsylvania Game Commission to create a resident population of Canada Geese.

By modern standards, this seems insane, because this overpopulated waterfowl species has contaminated so much of the water supply, has no major predators, and is overall unpopular as a game species for poor quality meat.

It's similar to how there were no deer remaining in New Jersey around 1900, and some had to be imported from Michigan. Now we have mass overpopulation.

Although the goose population seems pretty ridiculous a reason, the body of water is now extremely popular for birding. 

The acreage surrounding this is quite huge as well, and on the previous trip, we incorporated some of the trails and boundary roads into our hike. It was one of the most enjoyable parts of that trip.

I looked over the map and came up with a circuit that would cover most of the remaining trails in this property we had not yet done on the previous hikes.

The parking area we would use was a gravel lot off of Laurel Drive, a short distance from the turn off of Kleinfeltersville Road. We had hiked Laurel Drive the last time out there, because it's a pleasant unpaved road.

When Conrad, Alyssa, and Nicole and her dog showed up, we started on our way, out of the parking lot and briefly west on Laurel Drive.

The first trail we turned on was to the right. Valley View Trail took us through very pleasant woods to the southwest of the reservoir. Ev got out of the stroller as soon as we were off the road and ran.

We followed white blazes to pinkish blazes on the Spicebush Trail and continues. There was an enormous Yellow Poplar tree along the way, and then a very long boardwalk.

When we got to the boardwalks, Ev's interest was piqued and he ran across them. He pretty much did the entire Spicebush Trail without a problem.

It was becoming obvious that the narrower little trails were his preference when it comes to walking and being out of the stroller.

Some of these boardwalks were very new, possibly only from the previous week. None of the wood had begun fading from the new yellow just yet.

It was all just barely wide enough that I could push the stroller across it without going off.

We emerged on a gravel north/south road to the west of where we started, and turned to the right across the little tributary of the Middle Creek.

We had walked this road the last time as well, but where we turned east on Museum Road at the end of it, we all went straight on a mowed path, and then hard left toward the Middle Creek Headquarters.

We approached the headquarters building and walked around the outside of it counterclockwise. Unfortunately, it was all closed. It might be closed Sundays entirely, I'm not sure.

Even if it were to open later, we couldn't be spending a lot of extra time hanging around, so we continued to the Conservation Trail.

This loop trail starts at the headquarters and goes through some mowed meadow area to the west. We had some views of the reservoir right from the start, and pleasant pastoral views, but they all got better.

The trail ascended through a bit of a clearing, mowed, and then cut hard to the right into a swath of woods. It still wasn't too tough to bring the stroller up.

We soon emerged from the woods at a height of land that afforded us epic views of Middle Creek Reservoir and the surrounding countryside.

This area is right on the boundary between Lancaster and Lebanon County, and we could see to Willow Point where we had been at a great overlook on the previous hike, right near the lake shore.

We made our way from the clearing to the west, and then into more woods. It got to be a bit rougher with tree roots for a time, but not terrible.

After a bit of descending, we came to yet another clearing where trails diverged, not shown on the map. We remained on Conservation Trail, which had green blazes and occasional routed signs.

Pretty soon, we entered the woods again into a wetland. Just like on Spicebush Trail, there were splendid new boardwalks that had apparently just been constructed.

Ev got back out of the stroller to run across the boardwalks again by himself.

After the boardwalks ended, we continued on footpath through the woods, which started getting a bit closer to Laurel Drive again. The plan was to take the trail back out to Laurel Drive, and then head west to Elder's Run Trail.

Some of the group went too far ahead of me, and had to turn right on Laurel Drive when they got to it.

When I could see the road close near the edge of a meadow, I simply cut with the stroller along the edge of that and out to Laurel Run. We convened briefly at the edge of the gravel road, and then continued to the west just a short distance.

Soon, Elder's Run Trail ascended to the left, south side of the road.

Elder's Run Trail is an old road that ascends the Furnace Hills, crosses the Horse-Shoe Trail, and then descends to the south on the other side east of Black Oak Ridge.

We took a bit of a longer break at the bottom of the trail, near the gate that bars vehicles from going up the former road.

Once we were all good to go, we began the climb. It was really easy terrain, nothing too hard for the stroller, but it was an uphill push. Ev was not in any mood to be walking himself, so I got a workout.

As we headed up, there was a nice view to the right at a power line clearing.

We continued to push uphill, heading southwest, and then hit a turn just before the top. We then took a short break when we reached the crossing of the Horse-Shoe Trail. We had taken a break here on the previous trip, where we followed the HST through, and Jim DeLotto cut out early at this point.

From here, it was quite easy, and just a little bumpy, following Elders Run Trail down the other side.

Some of the treadway was rather steep for a road; if I'd lost grip of the stroller, it and Ev would go flying. I had to watch my feet.

I was also wearing my red athletic shoes with no tread on them, which wasn't helping in this case.

When the surface began to level off just a bit, we soon came to a really cool unexpected ruin on the right side of the road road.

It was an old stone house foundation, with chimney and fire place still intact. All I could find on this was that it was built in the 1930s, and abandoned by the 1960s.

The property didn't really show anything of note through this expanse on the historic 1875 Atlas of the county.

Ev got out of the stroller again and began running around the chimney and foundation like crazy. We could walk through the lower level door easily into the basement area. This was a great spot for another little break.

Just to the south of the house site stood a very well intact stone spring house, which probably dates to about the same time as the house.

This one had a full arched roof over it, and a footway area inside of it next to a collection area of the spring. Stone walls laid into the hillside were around it, and beautiful stone steps descended from along the east side of the enclosed section.

Ev ran around between the ruins, and started playing "hide and seek" with Kirk as best he knew how. He wasn't quite getting the concept yet, except that hiding and finding was involved.

This was also a good spot to bust out the first of the fun drinks I brought along, which was a weird wine in a plastic bottle I got on saw, called "French Pool Toy". It really wasnt' at all great, but I think it was a bit of a help at this point after the climb.

I was feeling much more relaxed after the first part. While it wasn't terribly tough at first, the trails at Middle Creek were not such that I could stroll and sip a drink. Woods roads are easier.

I got lots of photos of the ruins, and we all continued down along the trail from here. I fell way behind the rest of the group at this point, because just as we started out I had to change Ev's diaper.

I was further slowed down because the old road once again got steeper, and I had to take extreme caution while holding back the stroller going down the hill.

Near to the bottom, the old road crossed a bridge over Elders Run and continued level for a short time. Most of the group was waiting for me when we got to the turn for Middle Creek Trail.

The Elders Run Trail/road continued ahead to a parking area, but we turned very hard angle to the left on another level grade, which at first appeared to be an old woods road parallel with Middle Creek.

In a short distance, we crossed over Elders Run again, on a nice new foot bridge built on very strong looking abutments, which struck me as much larger than they'd build for a road.

It didn't take long for me to realize while walking this trail that this was by no means a road. It was a railroad bed.

I was shocked to think there was a railroad that passed through the Middle Creek corridor that I'd never known about.

At points, the trail went up slightly, while the grade remained in a rather wet cut in the rocks that a road would never have been given consideration for.

Any doubt that I might have had that this was once a railroad was gone when I saw evidence of railroad ties in the undulation of the ground in the treadway. I had to figure this out.

Later research led me to the Ephrata and Lebanon Street Railway, a 22.7 mile trolley line completed in 1914.

The line was scrapped in 1931.

The first trolleys in Lebanon were in 1891, and the original ones were horse drawn. They expanded quite a lot even through this rural area, and apparently some remained as late as 1942.

I found an online book about the trolley which refers to a "Rural Glen" station, which could be either here or Pequea, which we would do on another hike.

Here is the book link: H009608.pdf (seekingmyroots.com)

We continued along this right of way, which was very pleasant, heading north. The Middle Creek was alongside us usually rather close much of this way.

The foot bridge, and some more occasional wooden boardwalks, all seemed to be quite new like the other ones we had passed earlier.

I got farther ahead of most of the group again. Only Dan had continued on when everyone else had stopped, because he gets a little stir crazy, and it was hot.

Eventually, I reached where the Horse-Shoe Trail joined in from the left, where we had been on the previous hike. It is really one of my favorite trails because of the diversity offered along it.

The Horse-Shoe Trail in eastern Pennsylvania owes much of its existence to a man named Henry Woolman. 

Woolman, a businessman 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.

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.

I waited for the others to catch up at the road, and was a bit worried that Dan wasn't there. He was actually just down Kleinfeltersville Road and around the corner to my right in the shade.

When everyone caught up, we turned right on Kleinfeltersville Road, and then briefly left onto Millstone Road. The trail turned hard to the right across a little foot bridge and started heading up.

At first, the trail was very easy, heading only gradually uphill for a bit.

Pretty soon, all of that changed. While it still followed somewhat of an old woods road, the terrain got to be really rough. Ev had wanted to get out of the stroller at the previous road, but here he was less willing to walk.

Ev stayed behind for a bit walking, and I had to carry the stroller up the hill over the rocks. Everyone else in the group powered up the hill ahead of me.

It was really tough and awkward carrying the stroller over the rocks, but I managed. Diane was still near to me, and then Kirk called that he was having a problem getting Ev to walk behind us.

I got the stroller a ways up the hill, and then had to go all the way back down, pick Ev up, and carrying him further up. At one point, I was carrying both him and the stroller, and getting extremely winded.

The yellow blazed trail brought us up to the right from the easy stuff, then steeply left, right again, on a slight switchback on a washed out likely former road route.

Eventually, we reached the peak of the hill, and I was able to place the stroller back down on the ground with Ev in it and somewhat reasonably walk with it.

Jenny was waiting for me along a tree near the top of the hill, telling me she didn't know how I was capable of doing this.

I had been watching my phone GPS for a long while, knowing that this wasn't an incredibly long distance, but it was somehow taking forever.

We continued through much more level woods and soon came out to Furnace Hill Road. The trail turns left and follows the road from here, which was much needed reprieve. 

The entire remainder of the group was waiting for us at this point, and we all turned and began following the road for a bit.

I think everyone agreed that this little back road was rather pleasant to walk. 

We passed a new development side road, which was probably not there at all the last time I hiked through here, and the trail and road went downhill slightly to the right for a bit.

We soon reached the intersection with Girl Scout Road, where the trail turns right to follow that.

We headed gradually to the south for a bit, and before the road started getting really steep, we turned left onto Netzley Drive, and headed slightly uphill again.

We continued along a rather level section of the Furnace Hills near a settlement called Schoeneck.

Where the road begins to bend to the right a bit, the Horse-Shoe Trail leaves the road to the left into a small field.

There was a little bit of a rocky step down from the edges of the fields, but once into the woods, it wasn't so bad. The treadway was easy enough.

I didn't remember walking through so much of these woods on my past hike here at first.

I wasn't sure if there were any reroutes in this section at all, but when we started to come out to the next private home, I started to recognize it a bit.

There was a sort of wheel contraption hanging from a couple of trees. I remember going by it on the previous trip, which when we went by beore was totally out of the woods. I understand this is some sort of squirrel or wildlife feeder. This time, it was totally overgrown and inundated with stuff. Things like this really showcase the passage of time for me.

The last time I had been on this section of the trail, amazingly, was July of 2012.

We continued walking along, and the trail cuts slightly to the left to go very close to a beat up old garage.

After that, we continued along the edge of a lawn or meadow, and then entered a very thick stand of bamboo. Dan really seemed to find this part interesting, because it was so strange. 

The trail continued through thick scrubby woods for a bit, then cut to the right to a private driveway. It followed that to the east to South Cocalico Road, in West Cocalico Township. 

The trail went directly across the road from the driveway and entered the woods again.

We weaved around through the woods for a bit, which was rather rough, but then all of a sudden emerged on a farm that didn't look familiar from my last time out there.

We cut through grass going downhill, with a horse behind a fence ahead. We then turned to the right on a private farm lane with fences on both sides.

Where the farm lane turned to the right a bit, we went to the left, and then gradually downhill through some more woods.

We emerged at a very weird building on a woods road.

The structure was a full, wide A-frame roof, but the entire rear section was supported by a large tractor trailer's load.

I didn't see if there were any other kinds of supports behind this, but it looked like some interesting redneck engineering that happened to be working pretty well.

We turned right at this odd building and passed through some pleasant woods that were actually rather easy to push through.

The trail soon emerged at a rather new looking house or buildings of some sort. It probably wasn't even there the last time I was through. It wasn't initially clear where the trail went from here, and some of the group ended up walking across some lawn and down onto a slope by a barn building. 

The trail was supposed to stay below these buildings at the bottom of the developed slope, but the blazes weren't too obvious. The trail then made its way through a narrow swath of woods and emerged onto the driveway before reaching its intersection with Mountain Road.

The trail turned left on Mountain Road and started heading downhill a bit. 

When the road headed back into the woods and started dipping downhill a bit, the trail turned right onto the second of two long driveways to the right.

We headed slightly uphill, and soon reached where the trail turned back off of the driveway to the left.

We all sat down and took a break on the pavement here before heading back into the woods. I looked over the maps a bit to see how far this next section would be. I was dreading much more pushing through rocks and such with the stroller.

In the next section, I figured that the trail would take us into the Hickory Run Campground to the north, because it was so close.

I remembered on previous trips the trail going through such a campground, but I was mistaken. The campground it goes through is farther to the east, called the Dutch Cousin Campground.

Actually, John and Jenny stayed at the Hickory Run Campground the night before.

When we finally got moving, Ev walked on his own for a bit, and Jenny stayed back to help him. This was a good help because it was a rough slope to get down with the stroller.

Once we got down to the bottom, it was still rougher than a lot of stuff we'd just been doing, but I was managing. Ev eventually didn't want to walk anymore, so I had to keep pushing along.

In 2012

Conrad and Alyssa cut out at this point, and got an Uber to come and pick them up. I didn't realize that they'd given up at this point.

Nicole didn't want to give up. She was having a rough time, but she's got a lot of stamina. She'll go on about how out of shape she is, but she's willing to push herself very respectably, and of Conrad's crew, she was the only one that would complete the entire hike.

Even her dog was getting pretty tired. At the last break, it was laying its head on John.

The next section alternated between being very pleasant walking and rougher walking, but there wasn't a lot more elevation like we dealt with initially at the climb from Middle Creek.

With he amount of time we spent meandering through these woods, I was surprised there was no connector to the campground.

We continued walking to the east, and eventually came to a spot where the trail passed through a narrow swath between a couple of homes and driveways. It was interesting because there was really barely any room for the trail, but they made it work.

Soon, we emerged on Wollops Hill Road. From here, the trail crossed the road directly, and continued straight across on Trailside Drive.

This was certainly different the last time I came through here. All of the homes on this road were very new.

We continued to the end of the road, and it was obvious the trail just used to go straight on through past where the last house is.

Now, at the cul de sac at the end, the trail turns hard to the left and goes down through a messy wash area. It's really an awful bit.

How they expect a horse to be able to get through something like that I do not know, but I figure if I'm having a hard time getting through a mess with my stroller, it is not very equestrian friendly.

They probably had to allow for some sort of connection for the trail, but it wasn't really done that well.

We fought through this mess, and it was horribly rocky. The trail remained just down below the new house at the end of the road, on its left. Then, there were obvious former trail lands and woods roads.

We had to keep to the left of the good stuff, and when we were finally out of sight from the house, we turned back over to the better route.

The trail continued on not so bad terrain until we emerged onto another driveway, which led us out to Greenville Road where it turned right. 

This was among the busier roads we had been on. The trail continued down this for a bit, and then turned hard to the left on Swamp Bridge Road to the northeast.

I was really overheating, and when we reached the crossing of Cocalico Creek on this road, I really badly wanted to jump in, but there were all sorts of signs and blockages forbidding it.

We continued on the route ahead, and the trail soon turned right on Horseshoe Trail Road and began heading uphill.

I felt like the uphill was killing me again on this bit, but was glad that it was just pavement and not rocks.

I was surprised after a little while of going up that the trail turned to the right into woods again.

We entered the woods and started climbing gradually again, and it was getting hard to push over the rocks once again. I muscled through.

Just after we were well into the woods, we saw some figures standing alongside the trail to the left.

This, we thought was weird, because we hadn't seen anyone on the trail at all since the very beginning at Middle Creek.

As we got closer, the two figures became very familiar.

It was Mr. Buckett and Eric! They had intended to come out earlier, but Eric didn't get up in time, and decided to come late and head backwards!

I was surprised that they went all the way to the end of the hike and decided to walk it backwards. It was a rough bit of uphill they'd done in order to get up to the hills.

It turns out, they actually had gone further to the west, but they turned back and decided to wait for us at this location.

Together, we all continued gradually uphill for a bit. The trail crossed a driveway, continued a little further, and then cut to the left to come back out onto Horseshoe Trail Road.

We were near to the top by that point, and it wasn't long before we reached it and could relax a bit more. I walked and talked with Nicole for a while on that stretch about mutual friends we'd both known for years.

There were bits of views out behind the homes on our right from the top of the Furnace Hills, and lots of political signs about voting out Democrats.

Pretty soon, we started to dip back down and descend from the Furnace Hills toward Denver.

After a little bit of time, we came to the intersection with South Ridge Road. The trail turns right, and then left onto Miller Road here, but we continued down South Ridge Road to the south.

It was a huge relief knowing that we'd almost be done.

Dan had made it quite a long way, and he either Ubered back or walked back a more direct road route to Denver Memorial Park having gotten winded enough. He rode with me, so he was stuck.

We pretty soon started entering the suburban part of Denver. 

The settlement was formerly known as Union Station, a stop on the former Reading and Columbia Railroad, and later a branch of the Philadelphia and Reading, which we'd followed the previous time.

It was renamed for the Colorado city by Adam C. Brubaker. This is an odd example of the east following the west in town names rather than the opposite.

The road we were walking became 6th Street. We followed it soon across the Pennsylvania Turnpike.

I had originally intended to walk by the railroad station site in town on the way back, but I was too exhausted and figured I would make it part of some future trip.

We continued south and turned right on Spruce Street, which took us over near the Memorial Park.

When we reached the park, we went downhill to the left through the grass, and passed by a pretty little garden and pond.

I was quite tired after this one. We approached the cars and figured out how we would get people around.

I stayed at Denver Memorial Park, and Kirk headed back to get the Element for me from the start.

Ev and I walked around a bit and checked out the park a bit more, which was nice. I thought to walk to the tracks and station, but it was just too hot.

I was glad to knock out this section at this time, although it was much warmer than I'd wanted. Planning the next segment, I'll definitely be considering how the terrain was and try to make it a bit easier of a mix for the next one.

Soon enough, Kirk was back, and we were on our way out. Dan has been busting on me about the Horse-Shoe Trail ever since. Hopefully I can change his perception about it as time continues on!