A Fall Paddle on the Brandywine

Sunday, October 3, 2021 

Hi Blog!

Our current campground, the Philadelphia/West Chester KOA (which is actually located in Embreeville), sits on the banks of the West Branch of Brandywine Creek. When last we camped here in 2014, we did not have kayaks. We could have rented one of the campground's canoes pictured below, but epic rain made the creek difficult to paddle. While, we have had our fair share of rain during our stay this time, the creek seems to have settled down enough for us to launch our kayaks.

The West Branch Brandywine Creek is a 33-mile-long tributary of Brandywine Creek in Chester County. It is not often we get to launch our kayaks from our campground. Since our campsite sits high above the creek, we did ask Dusty to bring the kayaks down to the boat launch.

The West Branch Brandywine Creek is a favorite layover for migrating Canada Geese. The farm fields across the creek from our campground made a great landing spot. The geese then slide right into the water. Or, in this case, quickly leave the water as noisy kayakers approach.

While, the creek had a few feet of water in certain sections, there were other sections where our kayaks just barely skimmed over the gravel bottom. The deep slow areas made for great reflective photos.

This area of the Brandywine Valley was the America's paper milling center and the major supplier to the print shop of Benjamin Franklin in Philadelphia. In 1776, the mills supplied the paper to print currency for the colonies and the Continental Congress, including the Declaration of Independence. Those early businesses gave way to the railroad line that runs along the creek. 

The folks that live on the other side of the tracks have placed their own private dock along the banks.

While peak color is not expected in this part of Pennsylvania until October 22nd, we are seeing signs of fall all around us.

As we paddled up stream, each riffle we encountered provided us with plenty of challenges, while the calm areas between the riffles gave us plenty of photo opportunities.

This quiet pool was once a favorite with the kids. We noticed an old rope and chain hanging from a tree. As we looked about, the old tire that was once connected to the rope lay abandoned in the bottom of the pool.

Hurricane Ida was not kind to this part of Pennsylvania. There are still 9 bridges out in Chester County, including the Embreeville Bridge down the street from the campground. Huge trees were uprooted and floated downstream on the flood, where they beached themselves on a gravel bar. Luckily, we were able to paddle around the deadfall without having to portage.

We were surprised to see fly fishermen on the creek. While the creek is stocked with trout in April, the stocking is done several miles north of Coatesville. As the creek levels go down in the summer, so do the number of trout. 

These said they were after bass. We told them of a big pool just downstream from the fallen trees behind them. We don't know if they ever tried that spot, but it certainly had a large number of big fish in it.

As we approached the bridge of Laurel Road, both our kayaks bottomed out. We decided that this would be our turnaround. We managed to kayak upstream for a little over a mile.

The return trip to the campground was more of a float downstream than a paddle. It was a beautiful day to be out on the water.

We drifted by so slowly, the geese didn't even bother to more.

When we first put in, it seemed there were two competing gaggles of geese. The two groups were facing off like the Sharks and Jets of West Side Story. We were happy to paddle away from all the uproar. However, when we returned, they appeared to be one large happy family.

We drifted by as dozen of geese were taking a bath. We caught this guy in mid-splish-splash!

Just past our campground is the Embreeville Dam. To the left of the dam is the old mill race which leads to the Embreeville Mill. The rains from Hurricane Ida raced through the mill race and damaged a portion of the Embreeville Bridge. It may be months before the bridge can be repaired.

We finished our paddle and brought the boats back to camp to dry out. More rain is expected, so we are not sure what adventures await us in the remainder of our stay here.

Hiking the Hausmann Trail in ChesLen Preserve

So far, our stay in Chester County, Pennsylvania, west of Philadelphia, has involved just about everything other than our usual outdoor activities.  Each weekend day has been absorbed in visiting family in the area, and most of the weekdays have been devoted to having our water heater replaced, restocking our refrigerator, and fussing with a minor leak from the new water heater.  Luckily, our campground is lovely, and little Ruby kitten has enjoyed exploring it.  We've enjoyed morning walks in the area, including down by the Brandywine Creek, which flows past the campground.

One reason we like this campground is that the 1,282-acre ChesLen Preserve sits right across the road from us.  It is one of the region's largest private nature preserves.  It was the vision of local philanthropist H.F. "Gerry" Lenfest, whose donation of 568 acres to the Natural Lands Trust inspired Chester County to transfer 500 additional acres.  Subsequent purchases of additional lands rounded out the Preserve as we know it today.

We were here in May 2014, when we used ChesLen Preserve for some soggy hiking after a flood, and for long-distance running to train for the 2014 Broad Street Run in Philly with Katie and Matt.

It's a real luxury to be able to start out a major hike right from our doorstep, but today we were able to do that, so our trailhead selfie got to be taken on our own patio!

If we cheated and wanted to trespass on railroad land, we could have walked the nearby tracks of the East Penn Railroad (formerly the Wilmington & Northern Railroad) directly from our campground into the Preserve.  As it was, workers were busy on the nearby tracks, so we decided to direct our feet up Embreeville Road, past some of the historic buildings that sit between the road and beautiful Brandywine Creek:

The road-walking portion of our hike took us up past the Stargazers' Stone. In 1763, surveyors and astronomers Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon came to the New World to end a bloody, 80-year boundary dispute between Pennsylvania and Maryland. Their survey established the official line between the two colonies and stands among the greatest scientific achievements of the time. A reference point, now known as Star Gazers’ Stone, was placed to mark the astronomical meridian line north of their observatory on the nearby Harlan Farm. The Star Gazers’ Stone and a small plot of surrounding land are now part of ChesLen Preserve and are accessible from a parking area at the northern end of the property. Take a look at our May 2014 blog entry on the Stargazers' Stone if you want to learn more about it.

But we digress.  We continued on our hike to the entrance of ChesLen Preserve across a bridge over the Brandywine.  We were surprised to hear a lot of commotion and, looking downstream from atop the bridge, we saw canoe after canoe launching into the Creek.  Spotting several vans with empty canoe trailers at the informal boat ramp in the Preserve, we asked one of the people there what was happening.  He said that several local schools were having a science outing on Brandywine Creek, and his canoe rental company was providing the canoes.  We were mightily impressed:

Brandywine Creek was beautiful today.  It was a Bluebird Day, and the water had settled down into a merry, clear little stream after having raged chocolate brown a week ago:

Our path, the Peter O. Hausmann Trail, led out into the Preserve past some of the canoe tow vehicles:

Before continuing on the trail, however, we reviewed the information kiosk.

ChesLen Preserve was once part of a 17,000-acre tract owned by the legendary Texas-based King Ranch, which expanded to this area so their cattle could graze on the lush fields and fatten up before sale. They gained nearly two pounds a day during their six-to-ten-month stay. ChesLen’s agricultural past also includes sod farming and mushroom production.

The trail we hiked is named after Peter Hausmann, the current Chaiperson of the Natural Lands Trust.  David confirmed that our path lay in the direction behind him:

Shortly down the Hausmann Trail, we came to a small cemetery which is a remnant of the Chester County Poorhouse, once located nearby. Built in 1798, the poorhouse was a place of refuge for orphans and indigent adults. Its construction represented a vast improvement in the treatment of paupers who, less than a century earlier, were forced to wear a scarlet “P” on their sleeves and risked being beaten or driven out of the county. The poorhouse expanded over the years to include an asylum for the mentally ill and eventually became the Embreeville State Mental Hospital, in operation until 1980.

The 1-acre plot contains 204 numbered markers laid out row upon row:

Climbing further from the Potters Field, we came to the first of several viewpoints.  This one let us gaze North toward the Stargazers' Stone:

It is early Fall, and, while the Preserve doesn't have many Fall-blooming wildflower, we did see some beautiful clover --

-- as well cornflower.

Much of the Preserve is open acreage that is leased out to a local farmer who grows corn, soybeans and hay.  Many of the fields have been recently harvested, and Kathy found a fresh-looking cob of corn amid dried leaves and pieces of stalk:

The Lenfest Center, which serves as headquarters for the Preserve, sits near the middle of the Preserve's north-south reach.  A beautiful modern building, it nevertheless has a low profile and does not dominate the landscape it administers:

Nearing the far end of our out-and-back hike, we reached another viewpoint giving us a grand look at the Preserve property:

The trail sweeps up and down gently rolling hills, between swaths of grass and cut fields.  The rich blue sky and small, puffy clouds provided the perfect accent to our view:

Starting back after lunch at another viewpoint, we came across this lone tree.  Kathy said it must be an Ent with a crazy cap:

As we finished the 7.7 mile hike, we decided to follow through on that cheating scheme and hike back out from the near corner of the Preserve along the railroad tracks.  Most of the workers and their trucks had gone, but we were waved through by one lone worker who was loading bags of feed and other materials from railcars, destined, we inferred, for the nearby Embreeville Mill, which we had photographed on a morning's walk the other day:

Our long hike left us pleasantly tired.  We returned to the RV for a warm shower, a walk for Miss Ruby Kitten, and then some blogging.  We have a visit to our nephew Tom, his wife Michelle, and their two children, complete with Happy Hour and a Friday night dinner.

Cheers!

Chester Valley Rail Trail

Friday, September 24, 2021

Hi Blog!

On Wednesday, we made our way from the Catskill Mountains in New York to West Chester, Pennsylvania. We just got into camp before a huge storm front enveloped us. It rained all night Wednesday and all day Thursday. This area of Chester County was already hit hard by Hurricane Ida. There are so many roads closed, because bridges were washed out, that our Garmin GPS can't keep track of them all. We have been relying on our phones and Google Maps to get us from here to there. We did run a few errands on Thursday and managed to get totally soaked in the process.

By Friday, the storm had passed. We woke to a misty, moisty morning which gave way to a brilliant blue sky day. We finished the last of our errands Friday morning and looked around for a fun outdoor activity. Because of all the recent rain, hiking and paddling were not good options, so we cast about for a good rail trail on which we could ride our bikes. We found the Chester Valley Trail in Exton.

The Chester Valley Trail is located on the old roadbed of the Chester Valley Railroad, a branch of the Reading Railroad. Completed in 1853, the railroad hauled out limestone and lime from booming Great Valley quarries and hauled in coal to fuel lime kilns. Before trucks proliferated in the 1920s, the railroad carried livestock, dairy and produce from thriving local farms to ready markets in Philadelphia. Passenger service ended in 1935 and freight service at the end of the century. In its heyday, the Chester Valley Railroad delivered the mail, united families, conveyed merchandise, carried the news, and provided a modest means of transport for the frugal and the well-to-do. As a rails-to-trails conversion, the railroad is still serving the public today.

As we drove over to the trailhead, we were surprised to see how much of the area had developed since we retired at the end of 2011.  In fact, the trailhead wasn't a trailhead at all. It was a parking lot on Main Street in commerical-burbia! After a couple busy intersections waiting for traffic lights, we found a long section of uninterrupted trail.

In 2009, Chester and Montgomery Counties began to convert the railbed into a trail. Plans call for extending it westward to Downingtown. There is also a planned extension eastward to Bridgeport, which would include a connection to the Schuylkill River Trail, giving access to Valley Forge National Historical Park to the north and Philadelphia to the south. 

Fun fact, when Kathy was a working stiff, she prepared a number of deeds and easements that allowed the trail to go around the Vanguard Corporate Park rather than through it.

During our time working in Great Valley, there had been constant highway construction. We were amazed to see some of the completed results, including the brand new tunnel under Route 202 and 30. Kathy was so excited that she made loud choo-choo noises that echoed as we rode through.

We first noticed this building was practically on the trail. The owners have an amazing garden. While they may have to put up with hikers, bikers and walkers, they don't have to worry about trains going by in the middle of the night.

As it turns out, this house was actually one of many small train stations along this rail line. There were 13 stations between Downingtown and Bridgeport. Several were torn down and others were moved or repurposed.  This house was the Mill Lane Station, and it's original state is memorialized in a nearby plaque on the trail:

Portions of the trail are parallel to, or coincide with, 18th Century, Revolutionary War movements by Washington's Continental Army and British General Cornwallis' troops, after the Battle of Brandywine in September 1777. This includes the area known as "Battle of the Clouds," where an impending battle was cancelled due to torrential rains that dampened black powder, in the vicinity of Phoenixville Pike and Swedesford Road. Parts of the Chester Valley Trail are labeled as "Patriot's Path," a path proposed to connect the Paoli Massacre Site with Valley Forge National Historic Park. 

We spent many years working in Malvern and got to know a number of banks and businesses in Chester County. We noticed this housing development alongside the trail was being financed by our friends at First Resource Bank, headquartered in nearby Exton, Pennsylvania:

As we made our way back to the trailhead, we occasionally got a glimpse of the history in the area. The walls of this old barn have withstood the test of time.

As we were driving our bikes back to camp, we learned that the Stargazers Vineyard was hosting a Happy Hour with live music from 4:00 to 7:00. We had last visited the winery in 2014. As we drove in, we were impressed with how much the vineyard had expanded.

As it turns out, new owners, Michael Vorauer and Jason Kirkpatrick, took over operations in March 2019. They have big plans for the winery. They added this new pavilion where they host regular Yoga events, live music and local fund raising events. Not to mention, selling their wine!

Not a bad way to end the day. Stay thirsty my friends.

Hiking to the Mt. Tremper Fire Tower

The Mount Tremper Fire Tower is a 47 foot-tall steel frame lookout tower erected in 1917.  Historically, a jeep trail extended from the base of the mountain to a point below its summit where the fire tower sits.  Today, that jeep trail forms most of the hiking trail used to reach the tower.

Tremper was one of only two Catskills fire towers we have not hiked to, so we decided to climb to it today.  Here we are at the trailhead:

The trail started dramatically enough, with a simple wooden bridge crossing a small cascade, then the trail working its way steeply up the side of a hill toward the main trail:

At the main trail, the jeep road that originally led to the summit, we found a trail register, where we signed in.  As we started our climb up the main trail, we found that this section also forms part of the Long Path, a 357-mile long-distance hiking trail beginning in New York City, at the West 175th Street subway station near the George Washington Bridge and ending at Altamont, New York, in the Albany area. While not yet a continuous trail, relying on road walks in some areas, it nevertheless takes in many of the popular hiking attractions west of the Hudson River, such as the New Jersey Palisades, Harriman State Park, the Shawangunk Ridge and the Catskill Mountains.

In several places along the trail, we found small cascades flowing across our path:

Check out this video of one of them.

Our cat Ruby would have loved this trail, because the forest on either side boasted innumerable chipmunks, some of whom sat silently, watching us pass --

-- while other sat safely in tree branches, chirping at us to warn of invaders.  In several places along the trail, we spotted trees and fallen logs serving as chipmunk condos:

Some of the fallen logs have been drafted to serve as bases for trail markers, as Kathy shows in the photo below:

The sandstone ledges we have noted throughout our stay in the Catskills made themselves evident all along the trail.  This slab cohabits with an old tree, and we wondered whether it had fallen to this place on the slope, or whether it had been here since it was formed, with the surrounding ground eroded around it:

We found a number of large boulders that glowed white.  We could not determine whether the white was deposited as vegetative material or minerals, or whether the white material was inherent in the sandstone:

Like the Catskills as a whole, a dissected plateau, Tremper was formed not through the upthrust of rock layers but by the gradual erosion of stream valleys in an uplifted region about 350 million years ago. Its rock layers and bedrock are primarily Devonian and Silurian shale and sandstone. Bluestone is present in enough quantity that a quarry was once located on the south side of the mountain at an elevation of 1,495 feet, about 1.5 miles up the hike. Its remains are still visible today from the trail.

At about 2 miles into the 3 mile climb, we passed the Baldwin Memorial Lean-To, which commemorates one of the longest serving fire observers associated with Mt. Tremper.

Further up the trail, near the top, we encountered a second-lean-to, which appears to be more frequently used than the Baldwin Lean-to:

It was convenient in more than one way, as it was near the fire tower and the summit of our climb, and also had a formal privy nearby for our convenience.

Reaching the top, we took time to hydrate and peruse the trail signs to learn where we could hike from this junction should we be so inclined.  We were mainly inclined to hike back down the way we came.

The fire tower itself rises dramatically from the trail summit:

From the tower cabin, we got spectacular 360 degree views of the region, including this view of the Ashokan Reservoir to the east --

-- this view to the north, perhaps to North-South Lake where we paddled the other day --

-- and this view to the southwest toward Wittenberg Mountain, the glaciated peak pointing left in the photo below, and Slide Mountain, its neighbor, the slightly taller peak in the center of the photo:

As we noted in a prior blog entry, we backpacked those peaks about 20 years ago.  We have also tramped all over the mountains of this part of the Catskills with Appalachian Mountain Club groups led by our friends Lennie and Bill Steinmetz in January and February of each year.  In some years, our outings were hikes; in other years they were snowshoe treks.  But every year, they were convivial adventures with people who have become lifelong friends.

But enough with waxing nostalgic.  Back we hiked down the mountain.  While we had seen no one on our climb, we encountered three couples as we made our way down:  one young couple from Pennsylvania, another young couple from Brooklyn, a couple from France who could barely understand our English, and a local couple who were thinking of camping overnight in the fire tower cabin itself!  Well, we don't know if that is legally permitted, but we think it would be a great adventure in this beautiful early Fall weather, and we wished them well.

On down we hiked, returning to a fun guy we had met on the hike up.  But, this time, we found that he had two friends nearby, all quite impressive and colorful in earthly tones on this sunny day:

The hike was 6 miles, but was a stiff uphill and downhill climb, making it more strenuous than the mere mileage might suggest.  Most of the trail was loose stone, and some lengthy sections of it were effectively streambed.  Since it has not rained in some days, most of the trail was not slippery, but we had to be careful in the wet sections.

All in all, this was a satisfying, energetic hike, and the fire tower was a suitable reward for our efforts.  Only one more Catskill fire tower to conquer:  Balsam Lake Mountain!  Maybe on our next visit.