Schuylkill River Trail - Pottstown to Phoenixville

Wow.  We've only gone on long bicycle rides six times in the last year -- our last outing was at Gulf State Park in March 2020, about two months ago.  One of the reasons is that we most enjoy rails-to-trails paths rather than mountain biking trails.  But another is that we have lots of other things we also like to do, such as hiking, paddling, fishing, and visiting family and friends.

Still, today was forecast to be warm and sunny, so we found a trailhead not too far from our campground.  While the photo below was taken along the way in Spring City, the signage is representative of the great, informative signs we found along our route from Pottstown to Phoenixville.

The Schuylkill River Trail is a multi-use trail along the banks of the Schuylkill River in southeastern Pennsylvania. While about 75 miles of the trail are complete, the trail is ultimately planned to run about 140 miles from the river's headwaters in Schuylkill County to the river's confluence with the Delaware River in Philadelphia.  Large stretches of the trail are rail trails. Parts of it belong to the East Coast Greenway, a 3,000-mile trail system connecting Maine to Florida.  We chose a completed section running south, downstream along the Schuylkill River, from Pottstown to Phoenixville -- a 16 mile ride round-trip.

The trial follows a former railroad right-of-way originally owned by the Pennsylvania Railroad. The corridor was completed in the 1880s and offered a through-route from Philadelphia to Wilkes-Barre.

Most of our ride was through treed and grassy spaces, such as this --

-- but the Schuylkill River and the railroad have served industry for most of our country's history, and our path took us past manufacturing plants old and new:

One section early in our ride was a pond and wetland formed, obviously, by the railroad grade between that wetland and the Schuylkill River:

It must have been the sun and heat today, but we were astounded to see the vast number of turtles sunning themselves on dead tree trunks and logs in the wetland area:

Most of the trail has been completely renovated into a multi-use path, but occasionally, along the trail, one spots reminders of the path's older days as a railroad right-of-way:

Many of the industrial and other buildings along the trail have been renovated and repurposed, which has improved the attractiveness of the entire region.  However, there are still some properties offering opportunities to the creative redeveloper:

About halfway down the trial toward Phoenixville, we spotted a path leading down to the Schuylkill River, as we came over the final rise of land to the river, we surprised a family of ducks.  Mother duck took off upstream before we even spotted her family, but the little ducklings (we counted perhaps 10 or more!) didn't react as fast.  The wee ones swam away from us, out into the river's current, but called for their mother, having lost her, as they started drifting downstream with the current.  Mother eventually saw their plight and swam down to them to lead them away from us and upstream, where she had originally fled:

Contrasted with the ducks' frantic reaction to our sudden arrival, the goose family seemed to take us in stride.  Here, Mom and Dad watch the ducks as Junior tries to make sense of the whole situation:

The duck-and-goose confabulation ended, and we turned our attention to the Schuylkill River itself, including a railroad bridge in the background in the photo below where Kathy scans the surface of the water for trout rises:

We continued on our final push into Phoenixville, including one steep hill up to the ridge north of Phoenixville.  In the photo below, Kathy shows her spirit in conquering the final push to the top of the hill!

We rode down into the center of Phoenixville, along French Creek, and came to an old bridge from the Phoenix Iron Works complex, leading across French Creek to the old Foundry Building.

Founded in 1790 to produce nails and purchased in 1812 by New Jersey industrialist Robert Waln, the Phoenix Iron Company (later renamed the Phoenix Iron Works) produced pig iron, wrought iron, and other iron-related materials and end products. As the complex grew, it featured a huge blast furnace and puddling furnace, an adjacent iron foundry, warehouses, ancillary buildings, and associated equipment. In 1825, the company was the first to generate steam by burning anthracite coal. Other innovations followed. Engineers at the foundry invented a power-driven rolling method to weld and forge wrought iron, a process that enabled the iron company to begin producing cannon for the United States Army.

In the late 20th century, the company declined along with the steel and iron industry of Pennsylvania. By 1984, production in Phoenixville had ceased. In 1987, the rolling mill closed, all production of steel ceased, Phoenix made its last shipment of steel, and its remaining production and maintenance employees were laid off.

In 1998, the Phoenixville Area Economic Development Corporation (PAEDCO) took ownership of the old foundry building. Under the guidance of the National Park Service, PAEDCO undertook exterior renovations and constructed the Schuylkill River Heritage Center which occupies 1,600 sq.ft. of the historic Foundry Building. The museum tells the story of the Phoenix Iron & Steel Company and also provides information about the industrial legacy of the Schuylkill River.  The Hankin Group acquired the Phoenix Foundry property from PAEDCO in 2006 to create an 18,000 square feet event space.

For more information on the Foundry building and the Phoenix Iron Works site, check out this website for the Phoenixville Foundry.

On we pedalled from the Foundry building, over to a section of the Phoenix Steel site where an expansive lawn welcomes visitors to a large apartment complex on the north side of French Creek.  Looking south across French Creek, we could glimpse the old Superintendent's building for the Phoenix Iron Works, which, along with the Foundry, comprises the only surviving buildings from the original industrial complex:

We picked this open lawn as our lunch spot, where we could relax in peace while being socially distant from other users of the trail.  Eagle-eyed Kathy had spotted an Iron Hill Brewery just across the street on the other side of French Creek, and she found she could order a bottle of their "Bedottir" triple Belgian ale -- along with two disposable cups -- which we eagerly and (we assume) illegally consumed while resting our legs from the bike ride south, readying for our return trip.

Fueled with tasty Belgtian beer and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on multigrain panini bread, we fairly flew back up the trail toward Pottstown.  Along the way, we spotted this one last piece of local trail color --

-- an old house that, for some reason, boasted a new fence with a gate opening onto the trail.  We wondered what would possess the owner to pay such attention to the trail access, but offer the house only some not-so-benign neglect.  We did not find an answer.

But thoughts of the trail and its colorful and varied history filled our heads as we worked our way back up into Pottstown.  We had, in prior years, cycled the trail nearly 30 miles from downtown Philadelphia up into Schwenksville, which is below Phoenixville.  We resolved to explore one or two more sections of the trail before we leave this area.