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2021 Spring Newsletter
melissa-brookes

melissa-brookes

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Cresheim Trail: A rewarding 2024, a promising 2025
Cresheim Valley Drive Fall Cleanup – Sat 12/7
CT Fall Planting Sat 11/16
Volunteer Workday Sun 10/20
Volunteer Workday Sat 9/21

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Donate to Cresheim Trail online (Square)

We encourage you to join our group by making a donation ($50 suggested) online at our Square page or by mail to:

Friends of the Cresheim Trail

PO Box 4341

Philadelphia, PA 19118

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Email: info@cresheimtrail.org

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Once again a super huge THANK YOU goes to the ~40

Once again a super huge THANK YOU goes to the ~40 people who came out on Saturday for the Love Your Park volunteer workday on the Cresheim Trail. A shout of gratitude to @philaparkandrec and @myphillypark for organizing LYP, and extra thanks to @independenceyouthcycling @somontmtb @phillywissmtb & @powercorpsphl for the extra muscle.

Because the ground is so dry and hard — and our water source, our beloved Cresheim Creek, is so low and covered in algae — we postponed our planting but prepped the sites where the plants will go if’n it ever rains again. All in all a wonderful outing on a beautiful morning, which also included removal of tons of invasive plants (notably english ivy, privet, and oriental bittersweet), some boardwalk repair, and the removal of a ton of trash that was stashed near the Germantown Avenue trailhead (including a synthesizer and a boogie board, the first of each in our trash hauls).

Our final volunteer workday of 2024 will be our fall cleanup of Cresheim Valley Drive, between Germantown Avenue and Allens Lane. That’s coming Saturday, December 7th at 9am and we’ll have all our friends from @philastreets @mtairytrashteam @westmtairyneighbors @gomtairy & @chestnuthillcommunity with us. Details to come.

#cresheimtrail

It’s officially BROWN time around the boardwalk.

It’s officially BROWN time around the boardwalk. (Not to be confused with @DOWNtimebakery - a terrific new bakery from FOCT’s own board member and crew leader Sam and his wife Dayna, opening in Mt Airy next weekend!) Brown time means fall planting time on the Cresheim Trail, and we’ve got lots of work lined up for tomorrow’s Love Your Park volunteer workday.

Join us at 9am at the Cresheim Valley Pergola (on the corner of Cresheim Valley Drive and Germantown Avenue). If you’re driving, you can park on *northbound* CV Drive opposite Navajo Street, or on Germantown Avenue - please park on the Mt Airy side, as the farmers market will be happening on the Chestnut Hill side. If you haven’t already, please sign up at the link in our bio.

See you there!

It’s Love Your Park fall weekend across most of

It’s Love Your Park fall weekend across most of Philadelphia. Over 100 volunteer opportunities are available in every corner of the city today, tomorrow, and Sunday - check loveyourpark.org to see where and sign up. Then next weekend… join us on the Cresheim Trail!

Our monthly workday is planned for Saturday, November 16th, and our intent is to put a bunch of plants in the ground. However, it has been extremely dry and the ground is hard, dusty, and not conducive to putting lil bébé plants in the ground. So unless we get some serious rain before then, we’ll turn our attention to other tasks - including tending to plantings from the previous few years.

Either way, Love Your Park this weekend, then love it with us next Saturday. We’ll meet at 9am at the Cresheim Valley Pergola (corner of Germantown Ave & CV Drive). If you’re driving, you can park on *northbound* CV Drive opposite Navajo Street, or on the 7500 block of Germantown Avenue. (The Chestnut Hill Farmers Market will be happening so please plan on parking on the Mt Airy side.)

ALSO: Note the new date for December’s workday, our last of the year. We’ll do our Cresheim Valley Drive cleanup that day, Sat 12/7. Details to come.

#cresheimtrail

Friends of the Cresheim Trail’s November volunte

Friends of the Cresheim Trail’s November volunteer workday is always a good one: our annual fall planting! Come out and help us Love Your Park on Saturday, November 16th. (Link to sign up is in our bio.)

Thanks to @philaparkandrec and @myphillypark, Love Your Park is a week of stewardship activities at parks across the city; and as Cresheim Trail workdays fall on the third weekend of each month, ours gives folks an extra chance to pitch in. Between trees donated for LYP and a ton more sourced by our board member and longtime crew leader Dan Mercer, we’ll have lots of good stuff to put in the ground – all of it a big part of the ecological restoration work FOCT has done in the trail corridor.

Our focus area over the last several years has been that from the Germantown Avenue trailhead to the Chestnut Hill West railroad bridge — which you’ve probably noticed from the caging and tubes around young plantings, put there to defend against deer grazing and critter consumption. These plantings have included pawpaw, red maple, bur oak, red osier dogwood, pussy willow, and more.

FOCT likewise puts lots of energy into mitigating aggressive non-native plants like english ivy, porcelain berry, multiflora rose, and japanese knotweed. Plant natives, remove invasives — that’s our ecological restoration strategy boiled down to its essence. But it requires constant effort and upkeep, which is why we devote so many volunteer days to it, in addition to trail building and improvement, while simultaneously working to expand the trail.

Join us Saturday, November 16th — we’ll meet at 9am at the Cresheim Valley Pergola (corner of Germantown Ave & Cresheim Valley Drive). Don’t forget to register at the link in our bio.

#cresheimtrail

Sheesh. Outrageous fall beauty happening out on ou

Sheesh. Outrageous fall beauty happening out on our Cresheim Trail right now. Catch the canopy while you can! 🍁

#cresheimtrail #fallfoliage

What a picture perfect morning for our October vol

What a picture perfect morning for our October volunteer workday yesterday. Over 40 volunteers came - thank you @fowissahickon for the boost! - and we got a ton of great stuff done.

We gave some much needed attention to the trail crossing at Cresheim Road, specifically shoring up and regrading the north side, closing the short cut, and making it generally more interesting. We cut a lot of english ivy growing on trees and trimmed back vegetation (mostly native spicebush) growing into the trail. We replaced two rotting logs on the log ride with a freshly fallen sassafras, and we added another log ride further down the trail with a fallen white ash tree. Thanks as always to Dave D for the chainsaw work.

Up on the rail trail rough draft, we had a crew wack the weeds and brush so that it is passable the entire length between Germantown and Stenton Avenues. The contractors at the Trolley Car Diner project have placed materials outside their construction site and on the ramp up from Germantown Avenue, but there is room to go around it.

And finally, with assistance from legendary park friend David Bower, we removed a giant TV and a chest of drawers that were dumped (at our staging site on Cresheim Road no less), as well as about six other bags of trash collected during the day. All in all, a truly terrific outing, so once again THANK YOU to everyone who came out.

Our next workday will happen Saturday, November 16th, and will be our annual Love Your Park fall planting. Details to come.

#cresheimtrail #trailbuilding

THIS SUNDAY: Join us for a volunteer workday in ni

THIS SUNDAY: Join us for a volunteer workday in nigh perfect conditions: sunny, clear, 75º, and all kinds of colorful fall foliage. We’ll have all kinds of trail stuff to do: sightline clearing, the last vegetation trimming of the year, trail tread improvements, and hopefully, some much needed attention to the log ride. The photo here shows Dave, Nick, and Lance doing some serious heavy lifting on the last update to the log ride.

That’s this Sunday, October 20th. We’ll meet at 9am on Cresheim Road where Cresheim Trail crosses. See you there!

#cresheimtrail

Let’s try this again with the right day on the i

Let’s try this again with the right day on the image…

The early forecast for this SUNDAY is, in a nutshell, perfect. Changing leaves, a nip in the air, and long handled tools are all planned for our monthly volunteer workday, this Sunday, October 20th. We’ll meet at 9am on Cresheim Road where Cresheim Trail crosses (see map in slide 2).

We’ve got a variety of tasks, including some trail improvements (grade reversals and tread work), the usual vegetation stuff (sight line clearing, invasive mitigation), and some other things. We’ll be happy to have a hand from @fowissahickon too. It’s gonna be a good one - see you there?

PARKING: If you’re driving, plan on parking on *westbound* Cresheim Road (going downhill from Allens Lane). Cresheim Road has relatively light traffic and you can pull onto the shoulder.

Next month’s volunteer workday will be our annual fall planting as part of Love Your Park. That’s happening Saturday, November 16th - details to come.

#cresheimtrail

(c) 2025 The Friends of the Cresheim Trail

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