“Life is short and the world is wide, the sooner you start exploring it, the better.”
– Simon Raven
It's been a while since our last post. But that doesn't mean we haven't been continuing our adventures. We've just been sticking a little closer to home, and we've been too busy with other responsibilities to keep up with this blog. But, here we are in February 2024 already. It's time to bring everyone up-to-date on our adventures!
November 11, 2023 - Birdsboro Waters Preserve
We invited our oldest granddaughter to accompany us on a return trip to the Birdsboro Waters Preserve in Berks County, Pennsylvania (see our October 26, 2023 post for more details about this preserve). This time we we explored the trail leading up to the Stinson Run Reservoir, then passed by Trap Rock and the old Dyers Quarry on our way back for a round trip of 4.65 miles. We enjoyed the weather and the walk, and even stumbled on a large garter snake along the trails, much to our granddaugher's delight. She's a big fan of snakes, unlike her grandfather!
|
|
On November 25th we went for a hike at Berks County's Blue Marsh Lake, hoping to complete the last 7 miles of the Lake Loop Trail. Unfortunately, it was hunting season and when we arrived we saw a large group of hunters heading up the trail in the direction we had planned to go. We decided to play it safe and repeated a hike along the trail in the opposite direction. There will be a separate post coming soon about this 29.6 mile trail, which we completed in out-and-back sections over a year-long period.
Our next little adventure was a return trip to ride our bicycles on the John Bartram section of the Schuylkill River Trail. We first rode this trail back in 2020 during the pandemic, and we've ridden on it a few more times since then. The trail was recently extended so we thought that called for a return ride. We'll include that adventure in a separate post as well.
December 30, 2023
We decided to get one more hike in before year's end and headed for the trails on Berks County's Neversink Mountain Preserve. We've hiked the trails here countless times, but this time, thanks to one of our favorite YouTubers, the Wandering Woodsman, we had a goal in mind. Neversink Mountain was widely known for it's many resorts and hostelries that were built there over a 100 years ago. Ruins of some of the buildings can still be found today. Having grown up in the area, we had already found many of them on previous visits. This time we were on a mission to find some ruins that were new to us, and revisit one that we hadn't seen in many years as we headed up the mountain to the Upper Glen trail.
|
|
Although we were looking for this spring house, we didn't find it until we went off trail to explore what appeared to be a hunter's blind. We noticed a steep drop off just below it and when we climbed down a bit we could see the spring house. This was something new we had never seen before because it is well hidden in the brush and can't be seen from any angle on the trail. If it hadn't been for the hunter's blind, we wouldn't have found it at all!
 |
| Centennial Springs Resort Reservoir |
We then continued on the trail until we came to a small concrete-walled pond. We pass by this pond often when hiking on the mountain. It's actually a reservoir for the former Centennial Springs Resort, which was converted to a tuberculosis sanitorium after the first World War.
|
|
A short way above the pond are the crumbling remains of a cold cellar, left over from the resort/sanitorium. It had been years since we'd last visited this site, which would be extremely hard to find in the warmer months due to the large amount of vegetation hiding it. The trail to it was barely discernable even at this time of year! When we last visited you could easily walk inside the chamber. Now the large opening is mostly obscurred by the crumbling hillside, but you can still crawl down inside of it. However, the ceiling at the end of the structure closest to the entrance is badly deteriorated and it likely won't be long before it falls, further covering the entrance.
We had one other site we wanted to visit, but decided to put that off a couple days and save it for our first hike of the new year.
January 1, 2024
We decided to return to Neversink Mountain for our first hike of the new year. This time we chose to create a loop by heading up an un-named trail, then circling back on the Cove Trail. We didn't take any photos because the trail is a bit more scenic in the spring when there are wildflowers growing along the stream that runs through it. But, after we completed the loop we headed back down the Klapperthal Trail and made our own off trail path over toward the railroad tracks so we could look for the ruins of the Klapperthal Pavilion. We had to do a bit of bushwacking, but we finally found it.
|
The Klapperthan Pavilion, built in 1892, was 300 ft long by 50 ft wide. It contained a bowling alley, shuffleboards, a huge bar, a banquet hall, some dining rooms, and one of the largest dancing floors in Pennsylvania at the time. It had a cylindrical tower at its western end. Although we're not certain if the ruins we found were part of that tower, it was certainly a ruin from the pavilion.
The Pavilion didn't last for long and was sold in 1903, then dismantled and the materials sold. Some of those materials were sold to a member of our family who used them to build some houses on Neversink Road, including the house that Jeff lived in while growing up. This was our first visit to the ruins, although we had previously seen them at a distance from the Neversink South Trail above the ruins. We ended our hike by climbing up to the trail and following it back out to the trailhead at Klapperthal Road.
Click here for a map of the trails on Neversink Mountain. We always enjoy hiking there and highly recommend it, especially if you're a history buff. In addition to the ruins of some of the old buildings, there are some wonderful overlooks from the trails. If you would like to learn more about the history of Neversink Mountain, GoReadingBerks has a website with some great vintage photos of the resorts that were on the mountain.
* All Photos and videos are the property of the authors except where otherwise noted. *
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.