Hiking Through the State Park
16 July 2017
Today seemed like a great day for a hike! Sure, it’s a bit warm … and by “a bit warm” I mean it’s sweltering hot. That great fireball in the sky has been cooking everything in its path, especially all the plants on our back patio. I doubt they are surviving this summer.
But the good thing about being in the woods is all that wonderful shade.
Philly has its share of nice parks. Fairmount Park is the main one, and it’s definitely huge. While we do like to bike through there it isn’t really a “hike through the woods” type park. So where do you go to get away into the woods when you live in the heart of a huge city?
We go to a state park!
For many people in the US, there is a state park within an hour or so drive that offers a getaway into the woods experience for the amazing low cost of free! While they are free to use, they are supported through tax revenue so we are already technically paying to support them… so why not get out and use them? Here in South Philly, there are a number of parks in PA and NJ within that hour drive, but we like to go to Ridley Creek. Thirty minutes exactly from our door (or so says Google, and who are we to argue?), Ridley Creek State Park is a 2600+ acre green space with abundant forest, waterways, picnic areas, local historical buildings, and even a working horse farm. It connects to the Tyler Arboretum, so there are even more things to explore once you are there. We like this park as it has an extensive hiking trail network in a relatively small area. Lots of fun with only a super short drive from the city!
We have come to use a nice app on the phone called PDF Maps. Sure we use the Google Maps for driving and navigation, but that doesn’t always have the details you need on trails or in the woods. Topographical, trail, and any specialty maps that are set as .pdf flies can be loaded and used on this app, and you can go on their network and search for maps specific to where you are going. They have thousands in their database! We use a highly detailed map of the park when we go to Canada that is created specific for that park, it shows everything from marked and unmarked trails, campsite locations, trail section lengths, and even what fish are common in specific lakes or seasonal bird nesting locations. You can’t get that through a normal map. Anyway, we have the maps of a few local State Parks on the app, and it’s easy enough to load it up and use the phone rather than carry around the paper copies. As an added bonus it integrates your GPS!
We loaded up the Ridley Creek map and set out past the horse farm to find some trails.
We went down a path that we usually take, but then decided to turn down an offshoot to go to a completely different part of the park than we usually do, one we haven’t been through before. The trail was pretty good, mostly packed dirt with a few rocky spots and a decent enough incline. We walked along the creek and though we were in full shade, it was still pretty hot and muggy. That water was looking awfully nice!
Eventually the easy up and down incline turned to a steady climb as the trail pulled away from the creek. Wow, when you are out of shape, you really feel it on a hiking trail going uphill! The map we have shows the topography, and a quick glance let us know we still had more incline ahead of us. It was a bit more muggy here as we were going further from the water, but the air was still so fresh and the scenery so beautiful. I’d rather get in a workout like this over a gym treadmill any day!
The ground leveled out and even started a light downhill. It was still really hot out, but being under the tree cover added a pleasant coolness to the air. A deep breath has never been so refreshing; it’s almost unbelievable we are so close to the city! We stopped for a bit of a break, taking a seat on a large downed tree along the side of the trail. Sometimes it's best to just sit and listen to the sounds of nature, feel the cool breeze on your face, and just take in your surroundings.
We took another offshoot that had us go along the roadside. Usually we avoid these parts as we want to be in the woods and away from roads and civilization as much as possible, but this was a bit of a shortcut back as we didn’t have all day to be out. It was a great thing we took this trail though! As we hiked through this spot where there was less tree cover and more direct sunlight, a bright sea of red lay in front of us along the roadside. Fresh, ripe wild raspberries were growing everywhere! They were smaller than what you would usually find in the store, but those little rubies packed an amazing sweet flavor and the brightest red color. We have always wanted to go foraging but don’t really know enough to set out and find things. You do have to know what you are doing so you don’t mistake something you really don’t want to eat. We did know how to identify raspberries though. There were so many that we filled up both of our water bottles and it barely looked like we took anything from the bushes! We were bringing those berries home for later, but we couldn’t stop ourselves from grabbing handfuls for a snack along the trail too…
We got back under the shade from the leafy canopy overhead, and hiked our way back to the car, sticky yet refreshed from the sweet berries and the woodland air. It was a wonderful day in the park, and with a two hour hike and a half hour drive each way it’s truly a perfect getaway in such a short amount of time. Not going to lie though, the AC in the car felt great on the ride home!
Oh, and those berries we brought back in our bottles? Some of them wound up on top of vanilla ice cream with a dash of black walnut bitters. Absolute heaven!
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