Birdsboro Waters Preserve - Day Trip

 October 15, 2023

In southeastern Berks County, Pennsylvania, near the borders of Chester and Montgomery Counties, lies the borough of Birdsboro. If you follow Route 82 through the town and out the other side to where it ends you will find the Birdsboro Waters Preserve, an approximately 1,800 acre watershed consisting of, among other things, forest lands, miles of hiking and mountain biking trails, rock climbing areas and reservoirs. It's a great place to explore and enjoy nature. 

Hay Creek winds its way through the preserve alongside the remains of old Route 82, dividing the preserve into 2 sections. 

The trails are fairly well marked and easy to follow. Be aware that there are some rugged sections and expect to see a lot of mountain bikers because the preserve is very popular with MB enthusiasts. We met up with several on our hike. We suggest using AllTrails to map your route. There wasn't a kiosk with signage or printed maps to take with and there are a lot of different trails crisscrossing the preserve.

We focused our adventure for this hike on the side where the old Dyers Quarry and the Stinson Run Reservoir are located - the Birdsboro Waters portion of the preserve according to the map above. Our plan was to hike the perimeter of that side of the preserve, although we had to cut it a little short due to other commitments that day.

We started off midmorning by crossing over Hay Creek and taking the first trail on the right, then heading uphill to the top of the ridge. The trail becomes quite steep and rocky in spots. We didn't take our walking sticks with us because it wasn't our first visit to the preserve and we didn't think we would need them. We also didn't use AllTrails to map our hike because we are familiar with the trails there. Unfortunately, that means we don't have a map of our route to show readers and there wasn't anything similar to what we hiked on the internet that we could find.

Haycreek

Heading up the trail to the top of the ridge

There isn't a lot to see along the ridge other than a couple of houses peeking through the trees here and there, but we did startle several deer as we made our way along the trail. Because it was the middle of October, most of the wildflowers were already past their prime but we did see a few along the trail.

Along the trail

Blue Wood Asters

There's more to see once you hike back down along Hay Creek and over to the old quarry.

Hay Creek Building from the old quarry

Along the trail Hay Creek from above

We took the trail uphill past this end of the building in the photo above and around the bend to Trap Rock and the old Dyers Quarry where we watched several rock climbers.

Trap Rock Dyers Quarry Trap Rock

The trail along the cliffs at the quarry Rock climber Overlook to bottom of quarry

There is a steep set of stone stairs with a heavy wire cable bolted to the quarry wall that takes you down to the bottom of the quarry at this end. The photos don't really show how steep it is.

Heading down into the quarry bottom

Looking back up the stone steps

Dyers Quarry

After following the trail out the far end of the quarry we continued on it high above Hay Creek until we got back down to the bridge over the creek where we had started.

High above Hay Creek

Stream falling into Hay Creek

Our hike was only 4.75 miles and took us just under 2 hours to complete. We're looking forward to returning to the preserve to hike to the two reservoirs located in the preserve sometime in the future. 

* All Photos and videos are the property of the authors except where otherwise noted. *