I came here for a hike yesterday on the Yellow Trail and it was beautiful! This time of year…read moreeverything is green and the forest is full. The wildlife are out and about creating a great sound to complete the scene. The Yellow Trail is the longest in the park (about 7.5 out and back) and takes you through the woods and crosses the paved path a couple times. The trail has a few small hills in it that make the hike a little more interesting and fun. In some parts the trail is narrow and the trees are hanging over, but it is nothing unmanageable. The trails are marked throughout the park, but we did find that these markings could have been improved with more arrows when two trails intersected. The best method for making sure you stay on the right trail is to look at the color markings on the trees. However, the marked trees may be several yards down the path. Just keep walking until you see the marking and then turn around if you need to. I would definitely recommend checking out Ridley State Park for a hike, or even a picnic, as there were plenty of areas to do so. I would love to come back and see other areas of the park or even do the same hike again!

Such a cool park! Always enjoy visiting here, especially in the Fall. Highly recommend checking out…read morethis park!

Beautiful landscape horrible place to run. Should be called Rocky Trip Trail. Maybe it's because…read moreI'm a beginning runner but no way.

The lower part of this trail is fabulous. It is full of amazing hidden beauty…read more The northern section was more solitary while I was there. It takes you to Fair Acres and beyond. Parking is extremely limited at the Valley Road parking lot. One solution to not having a parking option there is to park at the YMCA. They have a long trail that leads from their property on to the Rocky Run Trail. But they don't advertise this. There is no signage. It's up to you to find the entry trail into the forest. How to do this: Simplest way is to park in the rear lot. Find the retaining wall. The entrance to the forest is there. Take the first trail to your left. Go beyond the picnic table area and bear left. Follow the trail until it intersects with the Rocky Run Trail. I recommend going leftwards. This will eventually take you past a small sewage treatment plant. Cross Valley Road and pick up the trail again. And this is where it gets really interesting.

Broken glass everywhere, stretching all along the trail. Dog owners and cyclists beware!!read more

Having now visited 11 of 20 Natural Lands preserves, I am noticing a pattern emerge. Many…read moreproperties are former farms, with old stone house and barn, and then hundreds of acres around them. Others are misfit plots of land that can't otherwise be developed or used for some manmade presence, or geographical reason. For example, there are a lot of power lines running through the Green Hill Preserve, and the Sharp's Woods preserve is largely swamp alongside a stream in a narrow strip between housing developments. The Wawa Preserve follows the geographical quirk pattern. It is a long narrow strip through a valley in Glen Mills, stretching from the Wawa plant to the Rocky Run YMCA. While the land is a Natural Lands Preserve, the trail itself is a Middletown Township-maintained nature trail, called "Rocky Run Trail." The trail runs along a stream through the valley too steep to be buildable, and include a road. So its current use and purpose suits this place well, and as always I am grateful for this free greenspace! Like all Natural Lands preserves, this place is spotless clean, not a spec of litter, although in a hike after a snow, there were dog droppings that someone didn't pick up, which is always gross. This is an ongoing issue I know Natural Lands is aware of, and trying to do something about (that, and enforcing the leash rule no one seems to honor). So that's not on Natural Lands, it's on the entitled local who thinks they're above rules and hygiene. As always, bags and a dog poo receptacle are available near the parking lot. The trail is a decent hike through a pretty and peaceful valley; quiet, with good vibes. It meanders by the stream, has a stream crossing with stepping stones, and then winds up along the SEPTA regional rail line.

An easy way to find the parking lot is just to take Darlington Road off of Route 1. As soon as you…read morecross the bridge over Chester Creek, the parking lot will be immediately on your right. Like with the Rocky Run Trail, parking is very limited. An alternative is to park on Stephen Drive and enter the Cornucopia Trail. Stephen Drive is in a nice residential area. Your car is probably a little bit safer there. The Cornucopia Trail merges with the Darlington Trail. Wherever you begin to explore, it's going to be a big walk with various kinds of terrain and vistas. My favorite part is where Darlington Trail goes into the forest along the Rocky Run Creek. If you encounter a black Labrador while nearing a home that borders the trail, don't worry about him. He's got one of those shock collars on. He just likes to run around and make a lot of noise.

Nice wide trail to walk at an easy pace. A meadow at the top with a bench to rest if you choose so…read morewith access to Chester Creek below. Connects with Rocky Run Trail.

I have to say I was skeptical about going here but was well worth it! Its a bit of a drive but it…read moredid not disappoint. There are so many rhododendrons and there is a Sequoia tree! Plenty of places to snap some pics and wander the grounds. Lunch on the chairs of the fragrance garden is a good choice!

Tyler Arboretum is a beautiful wedding venue and one that I'd recommend a million times over. The…read morefood is so so good and I really feel like they provide a reasonable and fair value in terms of price- you really get a lot for your money! You won't working with Tyler Arboretum and JAM catering!

Hildacy Preserve is one of now 20 (and growing) preserve properties maintained by the Natural Lands…read morepreservation organization. Hildacy is 55 acres located in Media, near the Springton Lake Reservoir. The address for Hildacy is also where the admin offices for Natural Lands are located, but note that the preserve is its own separate entity. The entrance is well marked, and a lot easier to find than I thought it would be. Their parking lot is nice and new, with ample spaces, and didactic info all over to help you get your bearings. Dog poo stations and trash cans are very obvious, and super helpful! Yes, bring dogs, but keep them leashed, and clean up! This place used to be a farm for race horses and German Shepherds, so the dog spirit is all over! I got a great feeling at Hildacy. The meadow is the walk we did on our first visit. They removed a non-native species (70 paulownia trees, which are native to China) which created this huge meadow, now planted with tall grasses that look like golden waves in the wind, very neat to watch! I would have liked to see at least ONE of the paulownia trees. I understand the biopolitical cause of the native plant movement, and as an allergy sufferer, I notice the impact of recent developments near me, with their crazy influx of landscaped fruit trees, all bearing flowers (to look pretty), and TONS of pollen in the spring. This is NOT NORMAL, I get it. At the same time, could not just one tree be left as a nod to the history of the property? A tree, and a panel to explain, would be all I need to understand what it was like when Hilda and Cyril Fox lived here. IDK, maybe they'd have wanted it this way? Again, it's my historical accuracy thing, about honoring a property as it was when lived in by the benefactors. We had a nice sunny day when visiting, and had the property almost completely to ourselves, except for a couple who had a male dog, the same breed and coloring as ours, and they both had the same name! They had a fun meeting in the meadow! Note that there was controlled HUNTING going on in the preserve when we visited per posted signs (see my pics). We neither saw nor heard any trace of hunting while there, except for a hunting stand tied up against a tree near the meadow. We did notice that deer had conveniently retreated to the residential lawns bordering the property. Jerks! Speaking of Hildacy's neighbors, there is an amazing huge old stone structure (house? barn? harn?) adjacent to the meadow. It is private property bordering the preserve, so look, don't enter, but it is worth a gawk just the same because it was so cool! As always with a Natural Lands preserve, this place is FREE!!!!! Visit for a minute, visit for a day, you pay nothing but time breathing fresh air, so go check it out!

Okehocking Preserve is a 180-acre preserve in the Newtown Square zip, but in Willistown Township,…read moreChester County, (not Newtown Township in Delco). Shamefully, Newtown Township has not gone to much effort to preserve land such as this. 155 of Okehocking Preserve's acres are part of the original 500 acre land grant William Penn gave to the Okehocking band of the Lenni Lenape Native Americans. The space is laid out like a farm. There are fences in some parts, dividing pasture type fields. Much of the preserve is just rolling open fields, divided by low-lying stone pasture walls, thin strips of forest, or hedgerows. There are some paths along the edges of the woods, some in the woods. There is an entrance off of Route 3, as well as the "dog park" parking lot, off of Delchester Rd. People take their dogs to both lots, and there is currently no fenced special dog area at the Delchester Rd entrance, so I'm not sure why it's called that. Personally, I have a hard time warming up to the layout of this place. I just don't feel safe when there are wide open fields and someone takes "dog park" to mean they can unleash their pets to run amok. I'll keep giving it cautious tries until/unless I feel safer, but the set up at other local parks is more my scene.

WARNING- brought my dogs there yesterday and they were covered in deer ticks - almost like we…read morewalked through a nest or swarm of deer ticks.

Trail = 5 stars! Not…read moresure why Yelp combined all access points for this trail into one listing??? Not allowing multiple listings for different access points prevents those unfamiliar from knowing there are other areas to park. The Knowlton Rd lot is already problematic and constantly full, so whatever, I tried to provide listings for the other lots. Annoying, Yelp, and not in service to the community. Try Mt. Alverno Rd near Iris Lane (toward the Pennell Rd end) Or in Lenni lots of people park at the top of the trail off Lenni Rd near Station Ln

Great running/bike/walk path! From what I saw, there are a couple designated parking lots which…read moremade it accessible. The parking lot was very full, but I guess that is to be expected on a Sunday morning when it's 55 degrees out in January. The path was about 3 miles long and paved the entire way. It also had some nice rolling hills and was quite scenic as well.

Easy and beautiful trails with great scenery. Once you've passed the blue route, the noise of…read morenature takes over. Deer, chipmunks and squirrels are frolicking around. Disc golf course can be "human loud" on the weekends.

Fun fact: Decades ago, this property was the site of the Haverford State Mental Hospital, which…read moreoperated from 1964-1998. In 2006 Haverford Township sold the property to a developer with requirements that part of the land be kept for public recreation. These 5 miles of trails are the result, along with a rec center, dog park and athletic fields. On an unusually warm winter day Sheba and I went for a hike along the trails. We entered by the rec center, then followed the creek bed to the meadow & back. We passed a pollinator garden and some disc golf sites. It's a lovely hike any time of year. Trail markings are minimal, this would be the principal reason for a 4 star review. We could see the heavy autumn rains have taken a toll in a decent amount of trail erosion, leaving mazes of roots spread across the paths. As the property borders a busy highway we never quite got to the peaceful sounds of the deep woods. I highly recommend you have a photo of the trail map with you as it's not hard to get turned around. Wear good sturdy shoes, and a walking stick is not a bad idea. We swill definitely be back.