Skippack Creek Loop Trail - Again After Eight Years

It was November 2014 when we last hiked the Skippack Creek Loop Trail.  We were camped in Hatfield, Pennsylvania as we are now (but not the same campground), and we had the Fifth Wheel and Freightliner truck.  Last time, the leaves had turned into a riot of color, and many trees were entirely bare --

-- but this time, as we started our hike, there was lush green everywhere:

We were surprised to see as many wading birds as we did.  We spotted at least two heron and two egret during the hike:

The fungi were equally prevalent --

-- especially this Jack O'Lantern Mushroom (Omphalotus olearius), which the small tag in the mushroom noted is "Poisonous!" and that it glows GREEN at night.  Fascinating!

Then there was this tree fungus with some strange-looking symbiotic friend perched atop:

But the trail itself was interesting.  There were some crooked bridges that threw Dave askew --

-- and some quarries where we learned that brownstone (another name for hard brown sandstone) was cut from the cliffside and shipped for building construction all along the East Coast from the mid-1800's to 1915.  Here, someone had pulled out some loose blocks, leaving an intriguing hollow in the cliffside:

The signage was quite good, new looking, and most of the bridges looked newly built:

We only learned afterward that the entire Schuylkill Valley suffered heavy flooding in 2021 from Hurricane Ida, which washed out most of the bridges in the area.  This is the sedate view today from one of the new bridges over Skippack Creek on Kratz Road:

There are two or three historic houses along the trail, which appear to be grandfathered and in private hands.  One, however, is part of the park and is known as the Friedt Visitor Center, which, together with its herb garden and root cellar, calls forth the ambience of early colonial farmsteads.  This historic farmhouse was built in the early 1700s and now interprets the lifestyles of the German Mennonite families who owned the home for 190 years:

Some sections of the park, which had obviously been farm fields historically, now present themselves as beautiful meadow, growing colorful this Fall season:

On the far side of the creek, as we worked our way back upstream, we encountered an unassuming amphitheater set alongside the creek, presumably for schoolchildren and other guests of the Evansburg State Park Visitor Center to learn more about the park, its history and its ecology:

During 1684, when William Penn purchased the portion of his American Province that is now Evansburg State Park, the inhabitants were the Unami of the Lenni Lenape Nation. Shortly thereafter, the area was settled according to the plan of Penn’s “Holy Experiment.”  The area developed rapidly. By 1714, the Skippack Pike was constructed to provide access to the Philadelphia market. The Skippack Valley remained an agrarian economy through the early part of the twentieth century. Following World War II, the pace of change quickened. Prior to acquisition of park lands, the rural charm of the area was in danger because much of the countryside was being threatened by urbanization.  During the late 1960s, 3,349 acres were acquired for the present Evansburg State Park, which officially opened for public use in 1979.

Before long, we had passed the 4-mile mark and were getting ready to cross this relatively new non-vehicle bridge at the south end of our hike, an extension of Mill Road.  As we approached the bridge, a large group of cyclists crossed the bridge and headed on up to the West behind us:

On one of the rails of the bridge, we spotted this bird's nest, which someone had probably found on the ground and rescued for the benefit of passersby like us:

But we've saved the most unusual for last.  In our hike of this trail in 2014, we happened upon these ruins of what might have been a mill.  Kathy climbed the step-like structure --

-- but when we returned this time, the top steps had crumbled away, possibly in the flooding from Hurricane Ida in 2021.  But we noticed that the graffiti had been refreshed since our first visit.

We tried again this time to research what the ruins might have been, but were unsuccessful, so they will remain a mystery.  Perhaps next time, we'll ask at the Visitor Center to see if any of the staff knows anything about those ruins. 

Go Eagles!