The Friends of the Cresheim Trail
The Friends of the Cresheim Trail
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Cresheim Trail Map

Recent Posts

  • Cresheim Valley Drive Spring Cleanup – Love Your Park – Sat 5/17
  • Fundraiser Sat 4/19, Volunteer Workday Sun 4/20
  • FOCT Announces Leadership Transition and Continued Momentum
  • Volunteer Workday Sat 3/15
  • Sun 2/16 Volunteer Workday CANCELED

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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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Welp, here’s a fun PSA: As you may have read in Welp, here’s a fun PSA: As you may have read in the monthly Cresheim Trail newsletter this morning, poison hemlock (Conium maculatum) has been positively identified in the rail trail corridor near Stenton Avenue. (And if you’re not on the CT newsletter, you can sign up at the link in our bio or at the bottom of our homepage at cresheimtrail.org.) Poison hemlock (pic 1) is a toxic invasive plant that can grow up to 10 feet tall. It’s been spotted elsewhere in Philadelphia, including Cobbs Creek and the paved Wissahickon Trail below Forbidden Drive. Its leaves are fern-like, its stalks have purplish stripes, and its summer blooms resemble queen anne’s lace. While poison ivy can cause an itchy contact dermatitis rash, poison hemlock does not typically cause the same skin issues — unless it comes into contact with an open wound. And for heaven’s sake don’t ingest it. That’s how Socrates died, you know. Eastern poison ivy (toxicodendron radicans, pic 2) is the devil we know — and readily found along the Cresheim Trail and in the Wissahickon. Leaves of three, let it be. And finally, in pic 3: Ticks! Deer ticks (Ixodes scapularis), dog ticks (Dermacentor variabilis), lone star ticks (Amblyomma americanum), and groundhog ticks (Ixodes cookei) are the common ones in Pennsylvania, and each has the potential to transmit disease, from Lyme to Powassan. Stay well ahead of that worst case scenario and check yourself while in the woods, and always give a full body check when you get home. But other than that, the great outdoors are awesome! Be careful, have fun, rock on. #cresheimtrail
A tip of the Cresheim Trail hat to the 36(!) volun A tip of the Cresheim Trail hat to the 36(!) volunteers who came out on Wednesday morning to put 103(!!!) new plants in the ground. We also cleared a lot of knotweed under the Chestnut Hill West bridge and on the Upper Loop, and we hauled out six bags of trash. The new trees include lots of new dogwoods, sycamore, chokeberries, and right along the banks of Cresheim Creek, river birches. Thank you to John and Dan for their leadership and to David Bower, @fowissahickon and the Q-Team for the big assist. Dan sourced the plants from @painterfaithpowerandlight, who partners with the @chesapeakebayfoundation to provide native plants to groups like ours. We’ve now done six plantings (three fall and three spring) over the past three years in the CT Eco Zone: just below Germantown Avenue between the boardwalk and Cresheim Valley Drive, with a Cresheim Creek riparian centerpiece. The tree tubes and cages that are so visible along the Drive indicate young trees and shrubs contributing to the Cresheim Valley’s ecosystem — and likewise represent volunteering. We are ever grateful to everyone who spends their time and energy helping us care for these special places. Our next outing is next Saturday, May 17th: our annual cleanup of Cresheim Valley Drive as part of @loveyourpark week. We’ll meet at Chestnut Hill Mermaid Park (7645 Germantown Ave) at 9am. If you’re driving, you can park in Chestnut Hill Friends Meeting’s lot at 20 E Mermaid Lane — walk to the back of the lot and use the Friends Loop for a shortcut to the meetup spot. Registering for this event helps @philaparkandrec and @myphillypark coordinate Love Your Park — you can do that at the link in our bio. #cresheimtrail
Final reminder for the special midweek volunteer w Final reminder for the special midweek volunteer workday happening TOMORROW. Friends of the Cresheim Trail and @fowissahickon’s dedicated Q-Team corps will team up for a spring planting to build on the work we’ve done in our ecological restoration zone. You know the one — the area between the boardwalk and Cresheim Valley Drive on either side of Cresheim Creek, with the happy green plants growing in tree tubes and metal cages to prevent deer from grazing. It’s all happening tomorrow, Wednesday May 7th. We’ll meet at 9am at the Germantown Avenue trailhead (next to the train trestle). We’ll have shovels and gloves (and trees), just bring you and a bottle of water. Then, our regularly scheduled monthly volunteer event will be the annual spring cleanup of Cresheim Valley Drive (between Germantown and Stenton) as part of Love Your Park, Saturday May 17th. #cresheimtrail
How happy are the pawpaws we said were happy yeste How happy are the pawpaws we said were happy yesterday? Well check out these photos taken just yesterday by our favorite nature nurturer Johnny Sap. These cutie pie blossoms are from some of the trees we planted in 2022 close to Cresheim Creek (you can see the tree tubes in the background), and the ones along the boardwalk are just finishing up their blossoms now. Will we have our first Cresheim pawpaw fruit this fall? Stay tuned. It’s so satisfying and rewarding to see these native plants comfortably take hold in a corridor you care for. (Thanks again to @philaparkandrec and @myphillypark for coordinating the Love Your Park events that produce so many of our plants, including these pawpaws.) And if you like this stuff, join us next Wednesday, May 7th for more of it. We’ll meet at the Germantown Avenue trailhead at 9am for a morning of planting native trees and shrubs. 🌱 #cresheimtrail
Heads up for a Cresheim Trail springtime double he Heads up for a Cresheim Trail springtime double header! We’re leaning into May traditions with TWO volunteer service days this month: • NEXT WEDNESDAY, MAY 7TH, we’ll be joined by @fowissahickon and the Q-Team for a special midweek planting session, continuing the ecological restoration work we’ve been doing in the area around the CT boardwalk and Cresheim Creek. The pawpaws, red maples, and bur oaks planted in recent years have been very happy, so we’ll give them some company with dozens of new trees and shrubs, including dogwoods, sycamores, river birches, and more. And then… • SATURDAY, MAY 17TH, we’ll team up once again with @mtairytrashteam and @chestnuthillcommunity to clean up the northern half of Cresheim Valley Drive for Love Your Park. (We do the southern half in the fall.) Our friends at @streetsphiladelphia will close the road for us, @phl_sanitation will scoop the trash we collect, and taking advantage of the road closure, @philaparkandrec will be on the scene with heavy equipment to remove all that wood we’ve been clearing from the Friends Loop. Both events start at 9am and will run till roughly 12 noon. Join us for one or both! #cresheimtrail
A big thank you to CT power couple Amy and Steve f A big thank you to CT power couple Amy and Steve for the assist this week. Amy and a small crew did a trash sweep of the rail trail rough draft between Crittenden Street and Stenton Avenue — and the loop back* through the woods, including the small stream ford. They hauled out 11 bags of trash, a PPA boot, and a copy of Marion Zimmer Bradley’s “Mists of Avalon.” And Steve reported a tree down on the same loop, for which we created a small reroute yesterday. There’s still a little work to do to finish cleaning it up, but the trail is usable — and clean, thanks to Amy and her team! *If you scored one of our new maps last weekend, you’ll see that we’ve named this trail Ed’s Loop. That name honors the memory of Ed Kreeger, the Parks & Rec district manager who was instrumental in the creation of the rough draft and loop back last year. If you ever notice a tree down anywhere on the Cresheim Trail corridor, please email cresheimtrail@gmail.com (or send a DM here), and we will make a plan for it. #cresheimtrail
Thanks once again to all who came out to show your Thanks once again to all who came out to show your love for the Cresheim Trail last weekend. The volunteer workday on Sunday was a smash, and the fundraiser the night before was a blast. A smash and a blast are what we’re all about. The music by @noggin_hill was outstanding, the food from @downtimebakery @tnffarmerspride @weaversway & @thirdwheelcheeseco was terrific, the room at @venetian_club was accommodating, and Friends of the Cresheim Trail was so busy having fun that we barely took any photos. But here are a few to let the record show it really happened and a good time was had by all. Pics by Greg, Nick, and Sam. Just a reminder: We’ll have a special volunteer workday two weeks from today, Wednesday May 7th at 9am. We’re still hammering down the details, so we’ll share those just as soon as they’re ready. #cresheimtrail
A massive and sincere *THANK YOU* to everyone who A massive and sincere *THANK YOU* to everyone who made this one of the best Cresheim Trail weekends ever. Over 100 people came out to our fundraiser last night, and over 50 came out for today's volunteer workday - on a holiday! Extra special thanks to David Bower, @fowissahickon and the Q-Team for the help, to @dannmer2018 for helping lead the workday and staying late to QA, and to @chquakermeeting for saying hello as we wrapped up during their Easter Egg Hunt. We had two main goals today, and we achieved them: continued clearance of invasive vegetation and deadfall in the quarry, and building a first pass of the Friends Loop's second phase. Bonus shoutout to the guys in the last slide who took the first lap on it not 20 minutes after we finished. We also cleared a ton of trash (some of it very old), and protected a healthy umbrella magnolia from deer with a makeshift wooden cage. Truly, a terrific weekend. We are so grateful for everyone's support. Our next volunteer outing will be a special midweek event Weds 5/7, followed by the Cresheim Valley Drive cleanup for Love Your Park. Details on both soon. #cresheimtrail

 

(c) 2025 The Friends of the Cresheim Trail

The Friends of the Cresheim Trail
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