PA Blue Marsh Lake NRA: Switchback Trail

 #40 2022 52-Hike Challenge: Blue Marsh Lake National Recreation Area - Switchback Trail, 4mi

Army Corps of Engineers

I don't know why I'm hurrying. This is my last hike for November and, as I try to finish my 52-Hike Challenge for 2022, my challenger/cousin has long ago finished in July. She is over ten years my elder and I practically job behind her to keep up when we hike together. She's been retired for just as long and enjoying every day of it. I'm giving semi-retirement a try. Honestly, it's taking a lot of adjustment. A friend and co-worker at my part-time job tells me it takes years to get used to it. Sigh.  I follow behind Amos on a gravel road next to Blue Marsh Lake, an Army Corps of Engineer flood control project just north of Reading. I'm feeling not very inspired by my thoughts or the scenery until we leave the gravel road bit.

Spillway in the Stilling Basin

Hiking below the crest of the large dam that holds back the waters of the Tulpehocken Creek we wandered through the stilling basin and over the spillway. I looked downstream into the creek valley where the Tulpehocken becomes a nice tailwater stocked trout stream. Amos was in a hurry and pulled me along the gravel road to get to all the smells. I don't need a coonhound's nose to detect the scent of a lot of deer here. 

Dog Beach and Blue Marsh Lake

We stopped at the Dog Beach and I asked him if he wanted to swim. He went down to the water and took a little drink then pulled me back to the path.  Amos was on a mission to discover every place a White-Tailed Deer has peed, pooped, scraped, laid down in, or walked. The first  half of this hike went by very quickly!

Leaving the gravel road

The flood control project was finished in 1979, a year after Tropical Storm Agnes inundated the Susquehanna Valley. That storm did not have as great an impact in the Delaware River Valley but Pottstown, Reading, and Birdsboro have been historically at high risk for massive flooding so this Corps project has helped control the potential for destructive floods greatly in those towns. 

Head-down sniffer on the job

The lake and its surrounding valley are now popular for boating, fishing, and hiking. I consider this hike as my Mile One challenge to walk all 26 miles of the Shoreline Trail around the lake. This bit of trail, however, only follows the shore for a short time before it leaves the main shoreline trail and begins an ascent up a knob of a hill then descends into the Tulpehocken Valley on the other side.  As we climbed, Amos began to slow down. 

One mile done - starting at the Stilling Basin.

Winter rosette of Common Mullein

Winter rosette of Mustard

We hiked up a series of twisty switchbacks designed by trail builders to prevent erosion and soften the steep climb. Pitch Pine and Oak began to fill the hillside. The top of the hill was capped with a Pitch Pine Grove with their bent trunks and limbs and dark short needles creating an open, airy canopy. Down the hill we went and the switchbacks became even more twisty, doubling back on themselves like Christmas ribbon candy. A lazy hiker would have been tempted to just quit the back-and-forth and cut straight down but I didn't see any sign of short cutting.

Switchback Trail (AllTrails) 

White Wood Aster, Eurybia divaricata

The sinuous path reminded me of the intentional spiraling of a labyrinth and now that Amos was a little tired, I was able to slow way down and walk meditatively.  Like the fringe on a prayer shawl, winter dried panicles of White Wood Aster lined the trail. I could all the way to the creek below but was loving the slow weaving of the trail that seemed to take way longer than it should have to get to the bottom. I was in no hurry to get there, however. 

Pitch Pine 

Labyrinths are created to instill a sense of attention and awareness as one walks serpentine paths that spiral, loop, and circle within a given space. Though I doubt the builders of this particular trail had a labyrinth in mind, it served as a perfect descent -or ascent coming the other way - that connected water to sky. Labyrinth walkers know that to reach the destination like a center, bottom, or top is having only walked half the distance. One must then walk back out. If it hadn't been so late in the day I would have done a proper labyrinth walk and returned to the summit of the hill. But the dim sun was getting low and the trails close at 4:30pm this time of year. I only had 30 minutes left. As it turned out there was a ranger waiting in the parking lot at 4:30 but I wasn't the last to leave. He gave Amos a nice compliment. "Fine looking hunting dog you have there!" 

Tulpehocken ("Tully") Creek

I was curious about who made the Switchback Trail but despite looking high and low, I found no information on it. It doesn't even appear on the official map (see Notes) but is linked with the Dog Beach and Shoreline Trail on AllTrails.  I did meet one mountain biker walking up the steepest part of the turns and the path was full of fat tire tread prints so it seems mountain bikers had something to do with it and had a labyrinth aficionado among them. Well done.

Notes:

Blue Marsh Lake Trail Guide is found on the main page of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers/ Philadelphia District excellent and informative site. So much cool water engineering stuff here that I went down a seriously deep  rabbit hole. https://www.nap.usace.army.mil/missions/civil-works/blue-marsh-lake/

The Labyrinth Society maintains a great collection of labyrinth types and histories. I wonder if I could add this trail to the collection? https://labyrinthsociety.org/