Kirkwood Preserve

Posted in Hikes by Annie T

Guess what? In 2 hours I will be running in my first distance race since 1999!!! The 5K is hosted by Willistown Conservation Trust, a local non-profit land preservation organization in Willistown Township, Pennsylvania. To prepare for the race I’ve been running like crazy on my treadmill AND, because the real world isn’t as flat and smooth as a treadmill, Matt and I have also been hiking (and sometimes jogging) in lots of local parks and preserves.

This week in honor of the upcoming race we visited Willistown Conservation Trust’s Kirkwood Preserve.

Kirkwood features 83 acres of grasslands along a stretch of the picturesque Crum Creek. The preserve has been classified as an “Important Bird Area,” meaning that you’re likely to see some endangered grassland birds on your hike. More importantly (for me, at least) this also means that dogs are strictly prohibited from all areas of the preserve.

I actually have a very personal connection to the rolling hills of Kirkwood Preserve because I grew up about 2 miles away from here. When my brother and I were kids we would walk here from our house with my mom all the time. This was back before the land was preserved (it was just a cow farm then) and we spent hours and hours of our childhoods here hiking, playing, cross-country skiing, fishing, picnicing… you name it! With all of those memories in mind it was really neat to come here with Matt and see that the land is still here and open to all. (Of course the barbed-wired cow fences are all gone and the fields are full of natural grasses now, but that’s fine with me!) Here are some photos from our walk:

Kirkwood Preserve

Sorry Bailey, no dogs allowed!

Kirkwood Preserve

Kirkwood Preserve is open daily from sunrise to sunset and has well-mowed walking trails. We did the outer loop on our visit and our total walk was just shy of 2 miles. The only access to the preserve is via the gravel parking lot on Grubbs Mill Road.

OK… time for Matt and me to start stretching and getting ready for the race! Here’s my running tally as of yesterday evening:

Miles since last post: 60.2
Days since last post: 11
Average Daily Miles since July 18th: 5.56
TOTAL MILES: 361.2

Wish us luck at 4pm…! 🙂

Kirkwood Jump

Other local hikes, parks, and preserves:

• Ridley Creek State Park (Edgmont Township, PA)
• Okehocking Preserve (Willistown Township, PA)
• Darlington Trail (Middletown Township, PA)
• Linvill Trail (Middletown Township, PA)
• Stroud Preserve, (West Chester, PA)

17Sep2013

Stroud Preserve

Posted in Hikes by Annie T

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

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:

Enjoying our hike!

Bailey hears something in the woods

Wildflowers

Trail Marker

Bailey’s had enough photos for one day

Stroud Preserve

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)

7Feb2012

Okehocking Preserve

Posted in Hikes by Annie T

I just realized that there’s another topic that I’d like to write about in addition to recipes and Bailey updates — places we like to Hike!

Okehocking Preserve in Willistown Township, PA

Matt, Bailey and I have explored parks and preserves all over Delaware and Chester County, often in pursuit of geocaches. We have several favorite places that we like to hike including Okehocking Preserve in Willistown Township, PA. Okehocking is bounded by West Chester Pike to the south and Delchester and Garrett Mill Roads to the east and west, respectively. It’s full of rolling hills and mowed hiking trails and, best of all, it’s less than a mile from our house. From the top of one of the hills you can actually see our house!

You can see our house from this hill at Okehocking (and no, it's not the stone one...)

In addition to the beautiful landscapes Okehocking also has an off-leash dog park. Unfortunately for Miss Bailey the park is not fenced so she’s not going off-leash there anytime soon, but it is fun to watch the other dogs run around. Last year we saw a female GSP at Okehocking and after a quick chat with her owner realized that she was Bailey’s sister!!! Bailey was born in New Jersey so finding her littermate romping at a park a mile from home was pretty crazy.