Good Luck on the Horseshoe Trail

Adventures can start in your backyard if you know where to look. Our new adventure did just that, well, actually it was a few blocks behind my parents backyard, but it's basically the same thing. It all started before embarking on the AT when some of my parents neighbors, who interestingly fabricate extremely realistic prosthetics, invited me over to see their African art and the original 1948 National Geographic that featured Earl Shaffer and his historic complete trek from Georgia to Maine. While I was visiting, they said, 'Ya know sweetie, I think that there is a trail right here in our backyards that hooks up with the AT. I wouldn't swear it, nope. But we've heard tell of it." I let this unconfirmed statement slip from my brain for a time. After all, it sounded to awesome to be true and I'd never seen a trail around. Now, fast forward a few months, post AT, on a warm evening walking home after working at the Wharton Esherick Museum (aka the dean of American craftsman's abode that looks like a fairy tale house) I noticed some yellow blazes painted onto some trees, and then some more and then some more.... A TRAIL! Right in my backyard. Rob, the awesome Director of the Esherick Museum (shout out also to Paul, the awesome Curator!) confirmed my neighbors statement and my own suspicions. In fact, he not only knew the name of the trail, but had hiked the whole thing! Dear readers, introducing THE HORSESHOE TRAIL; a Pennsylvania hiking and equestrian trail stretching 140 miles from Valley Forge to the Appalachian Trail on Stony Mountain. According to Rob, in the 60's, the trail was campable from start to finish (sometimes on the property of friendly farmers). Unfortunately, suburbia's ravenous appetite has devoured large swatches of forested land, leaving a small tract which the trail delicately traverses through large subdivisions. Luckily, once the intrepid hiker gets closer to western PA, greater views and more camping is afforded.


(HST trail head)

How crazy that these little used footpaths for those who seek companionship with the wilderness are in league with each other - maybe not that crazy... The Horseshoe Trail Club, founded in 1935, has a website that alerted me to the fact that a complete trail guide exists and I bought one from a Revolutionary War re-enactor working the museum bookstore at Valley Forge park. Now I was set all I had to do was call upon my trail companion Mister Mike Marks. We set off down my parents driveway to follow the trail which once connected the various Pennsylvanian forges and furnaces, leading through the charcoal forests between them. The trail helped to fuel the iron industry of the East in the late 18th and early 20th centuries. Portion of the old iron trails have survived to become today's Horse-Shoe Trail.


(An old trickster crow watches us from a pear tree)


(Old spring water bottling plant - the stream runs right through the building)



The trail was a vital supply chain, bringing cast iron and pig iron supplies to soldiers and colonial era families. According to the HST guide, "William Penn encouraged the mining and manufacture of iron in the PA colony. In the early days, the forges were built to produce finished goods, such as cast iron stoves and other simple castings." The only downside to the modern trail is that urban sprawl has relegated large portions of it to neighborhood sidewalks and edges of lawns causing old people watering their yards to stare at you strangely when you trek by with a huge backpack on and people in cars to stare at you even more strangely - where would we be going and where the hell did we come from? It was obvious that the trail probably didn't get much use. Hiking suburbia is a strange experience indeed. Much like my own parents, it was obvious that many people didn't even know the trail was in their backyards.


(Who knew we'd see chinchillas at Great Valley Nature Center along the way!)









We were afforded leaf cover most of the time, however and saw some beautiful PA countryside, an old spring bottling plant, horse farms, and Historic Yellow Springs a mecca for people seeking healing of a wide variety of bodily ills from its iron-rich "yellow" water since Native Americans inhabited the region. Hopewell Furnace was an awesome stop along the Horseshoe Trail. It is an excellently preserved furnace who's flame ran strong from 1771-1883. The furnace was a major supplier of canons for the Union Army during the Civil War. Today it is owned by the National Park Service and is still in action, worked by men in period clothing who demonstrated the making of cast iron stove doors. Park rangers rode huge work horses around, women in long skirts and bonnets sold us root beer and we picked our own apples from the on-site orchard from which a delicious southern-style apple pie with sour cream was made upon return to the Simmons' abode - yummmmm.