Last weekend Matt, Bailey and I took a hike in the beautiful Stroud Preserve located just west of West Chester, Pennsylvania. This was our first time visiting this nature preserve and we really enjoyed the rolling hills, scenic views, and well-marked trails.
Stroud Preserve is maintained by Natural Lands Trust, a non-profit land conservation organization in southeastern Pennsylvania. According to the NLT web site:
Stroud Preserve consists of 571 acres of culturally and ecologically important land in Chester County. This rolling mosaic of once-pastured grasslands, working farmlands, and woodlands now serves as wildlife habitat and a unique site for research by the Stroud Water Research Center, one of the premier stream research labs in North America.
Here are some photos from our hike on Saturday:
If you’re looking for a peaceful, natural area to hike in southeastern Pennsylvania l would definitely recommend paying a visit to Stroud Preserve. The preserve is located at 454 North Creek Road, West Chester, PA 19382 and a copy of NLT’s trail map is below.
Please note that only the trails marked with solid lines are dog-friendly and dogs should be kept on leash at all times. With this in mind we took Bailey on the Yellow Trail loop with a detour onto the Gray Trail to avoid the no-dogs area and we finished up around the northern part of the Purple trail. Our hike was about 3.2 miles long. If we go back sometime without Bailey (which is unlikely since she LOVES going hiking!!) we’d probably try the full red loop which is supposed to be 4.2 miles long.
Bailey loves hiking!
Here are links to some other hiking spots in Chester and Delaware County, PA that I’ve blogged about. Enjoy!
• Ridley Creek State Park (Edgmont Township, PA)
• Okehocking Preserve (Willistown Township, PA)
• Darlington Trail (Middletown Township, PA)
• Linvill Trail (Middletown Township, PA)
The Little GSP 