PA Shenk's Ferry Wildflower Preserve

After a night of thunderstorms that cleared early in the morning I had to get out to visit another one of my favorite local preserves, Shenk's Ferry, managed by the Lancaster Conservancy.  The Conservancy has shut down many of its preserves because of social distancing concerns: crowded trails, damage to natural features, and dangerous parking situations. I decided to investigate this preserve early in the morning, park far away, walk in from another direction, and leave by 10am.

Virginia Bluebells

I parked at the Enola Low Grade Rail Trail Coleman Church parking area neat the Martic Trestle and walked a few miles up to the "back entrance" where a tiny little sign on the rail trail, easy to miss, says "Wildflower Preserve" under the power lines. An almost indistinct path leads down into the woods from there. I was surrounded by a bright green woodland sloping down to the Susquehanna River. This is River Hills country and all around were high banks of wildflowers growing on steep sunlit carpets of new growth.  The Virginia Bluebells seemed to dominate at first, but then enormous carpets of Trillium and Dutchmen's Breeches came into view, spilling down the hillsides, overtaking rocky outcrops, and blanketing the creek valley below.

Susquehanna Trillium, Trillium flexipes

Mayapple and Dutchmen's Breeches

In "normal" times, this preserve is crowded on weekends with masses of wildflower gawkers, including gatherings of Amish and Mennonite who adore the wildflower season along the river. It is not unusual to find more horses and buggies in the parking area than cars! But this year is different.  I met only one small Mennonite family and two wildflower photographers, one whom I recognized and whose last name is the target of his shooting session this morning. See notes.

Virginia Bluebell 

This is river hills walking at its best. This bio-region is found on both sides of the Susquehanna and is a designated hotspot for biodiversity in the Mid-Atlantic. Streams that drain the plateau above the river carve steep valleys that in aerial view form green canyons that branch from the river like root systems from a grand old tree. If you do a "fly over" using Google maps in satellite view you'll see what I mean. It's a landscape too steep for farming and too rocky for building and, except for the remnants of old wagon roads carved into the sides of the hills to reach the fertile farmland above the river, these hill-and-ravine sites are interlaced with trails and are for the most part now protected.

Spicebush "in green flame" as tiny leaves emerge above the small yellow flower clusters

The preserve trail empties out on to the old bumpy Green Hill Road, now closed to vehicles since 2019. I remember when we would drive that old road, nearly getting tossed out of our open bed pick up truck as the truck climbed over the steep ledges of schist in low gear. Now it's a traffic-free walk and from the trailhead paring area to the kiosk at the bottom of the valley and beyond. The old road gives plenty of space to spread out (social distancing!) while the narrow preserve trail is trickier. Jim was sticking just to the road for that very reason.

Ore seam draped in wildflowers. 

What is not evident unless you are looking specifically past  the hillsides of wildflowers at the landscape, is that this valley was once the location of a thriving riverside community, Shenk's Ferry. The 19th century town once contained an iron forge, taverns, two hotels, the ferry station, two grist mills, and dozens of homes along Green Hill Road.

Main preserve trail is actually the C.B. Grubb short spur rail line. 

The main wildflower preserve trail is actually the old narrow gauge rail line, C.B. Grubb's Railroad,  built to move product up to the main line (like flour) and connect to roads and other lines that delivered to larger centers of commerce. Iron ore was moved downhill to the furnace from the ore banks at the top of the ravine.

Virginia Saxifrage

Let the snake

Wait under his weed

and the writing be of words, slow and quick, sharp

to strike, quiet to wait

sleepless.

- through metaphor to reconcile 

the people and the stones.

Compose (no ideas 

but in things) Invent!

Saxifrage is my flower that splits

the rocks. 

- William Carlos Williams, A Sort of A Song

Shenks Ferry Hotel  in 1919 where the new preserve parking lot is today. Note lack of woodlands!

When the newer rail line was built along the river, the center of the town was obliterated by construction. The new parking area built by the Lancaster Conservancy is actually the site of one of the larger hotels. Construction of the Enola Low Grade rail line above the river destroyed the sites of outlying homes and businesses, including the residence of the village doctor.

Underpass tunnel today surrounded by rich woodlands absent in 1919. 

Probably the most famous of the Shenk's Ferry industrial sites is the dynamite factory that sat in Bausman's Hollow above the town. Getting to this site takes a bit of dedicated trail work and is not easily accessible to those unprepared for a little wandering in the woods. The short story  is that the factory exploded in 1906 killing 11 men and injuring a dozen others. The Coleman Church graveyard, a few miles from Shenk's Ferry, contains only two graves. One is a mass grave that contains the boxed fragments of ten of the victims, while the only identifiable body is interred in a grave next to it.

Dynamite factory in Bausman's Hollow above the town of Shenks Ferry,  c. 1904

This was a very busy factory at the time of the Enola Low Grade Railroad construction. It fulfilled huge orders of dynamite used for blasting the great cliffs along the river to made the rail bed as well as provided all of the blasting powder for the construction of the Safe Harbor Dam.

Paw Paw flower bud and leaf shoot. 

Once off the main trail, I wandered Green Hill Road in both directions and walked up out of the valley on Colemanville Road, where I had the bright idea to come back another time and  look for the dynamite factory site and visit the graveyard.  But for this hike, a much needed break from online work, I took in the sculptural forms of the hills and the carpet of flowers. Soon these woods will be shaded out by a thick canopy of leaves and it will be hard to see the shape of land.

River hills woodlands

The idea that this stunning preserve really hasn't been a wild and nature-y place for all that long boggled my mind as I walked between the steep ravine hills on the old road. I took a close look at the forest cover and realized there are very few very old trees with most ranging under 50 years or less. This means that in my lifetime this area has grown back from developed use to what is now a treasured wilderness where a profusion of wildflowers blossom.

Dutchman's Breeches

The most common blossom is the ubiquitous Dutchman's Breeches that literally blankets the hills right now. The flowers were said to resemble a pair of white britches hung on a line to dry by their knees, but the pantaloons-shaped flower is actually composed of four petals, two that compose the "pants" and two that are tucked below to protect the interior of the flower. It is such an oddly shaped blossom that only insect specialists with a long proboscis like our native bumblebees can reach the nectar pocket inside. The ground nearly hummed with newly emerged bumblebee queens probing the flower beds for food.

Virginia Bluebells

By nine-thirty I had completed my five mile loop and rejoined the rail trail which after only two hours had become a little more populated with many bike riders, small families with kids, and joggers. It was time to create some distance and head home.


Notes:

Jim Flowers is a noted wildlife and wildflower photographer for the South Central Pennsylvania landscape. I've happened upon him several times in the River Hills area doing what he loves. Heres his blog.
https://birdsandblooms.me/about/