Home
Volunteer Workdays
Maps
Feasibility Study
Press
Donate

Home
Trail Walks
Trail Walk - Progress begins.
DSC_0462

DSC_0462

Recent Posts

Cresheim Valley Drive Cleanup: Sat 5/16
Toast to the Trail: Cresheim Trail Fundraiser 2026
Earth Day Workday CANCELED! Volunteer event Sun 4/19
Cresheim Trail volunteer workday Wed 4/1
Cresheim Trail volunteer workday Sat 3/21

Donate

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

Contact Us

Email: info@cresheimtrail.org

Newsletter

Click here to sign up for our newsletter

Instagram

cresheimtrail

Imagine a Cresheim Valley Drive, sparkling clean a

Imagine a Cresheim Valley Drive, sparkling clean and free of cars… A week from today, make that dream a reality. Join Friends of the Cresheim Trail and all our partners for a CVD cleanup and volunteer workday, part of Love Your Park spring festivities happening across the city.

We’ll meet at 9am next Saturday, May 16th, at Mermaid Park in Chestnut Hill. PLEASE NOTE that the Chestnut Hill Farmers Market will be happening, so if you are driving, plan on parking at Chestnut Hill Friends Meeting, 20 E Mermaid Lane. (Thank you CHFM!) You can walk from the back of the lot right down the Friends Loop to the meetup spot.

Then, two weeks after that, join FOCT just up the Hill for a Toast to the Trail, our 2026 fundraiser. Tickets are available on a sliding scale starting at just $40. This event goes a long way toward supporting our mission to create and promote multi-use trails that connect communities and provide accessible open space in Philadelphia and Montgomery Counties. More details on this event to come.

In the meantime, join us next week for a little spring clean and green action. Registration is at the link in our bio, as are tickets to the Toast.

THANK YOU to all our community partners for this event: @streetsphiladelphia @philaparkandrec @myphillypark @chestnuthillcommunity @mtairytrashteam @westmtairyneighbors @chconservancy … and YOU!

Eleven days till we KEEP IT CLEAN. Join FOCT and f

Eleven days till we KEEP IT CLEAN. Join FOCT and friends to Love Your Park next weekend at our annual cleanup of the northern half of Cresheim Valley Drive. The road will be closed between Germantown and Stenton Avenues, so with a little help from @streetsphiladelphia and @philaparkandrec we’ll get out and clean up all that trash you’ve been wishing would be cleaned up. In fact, you can join us!

It’s happening next SATURDAY, MAY 16TH. We’ll meet at 9am at Mermaid Park in Chestnut Hill (7645 Germantown Ave). Please note that the Chestnut Hill Farmers Market will be happening, so if you’re driving, please park at Chestnut Hill Friends Meeting (20 E Mermaid Lane), who’ve generously made their lot available for this event. Walk to the back of the lot and take the Friends Loop down the hill to the meetup spot.

As always, this event is part of the Love Your Park spring festivities, so please register at the link in our bio. Shoutout to our friends and partners @mtairytrashteam @chestnuthillcommunity

#cresheimtrail

Shoutout to all our friends on the northern half o

Shoutout to all our friends on the northern half of the Cresheim Valley - we’re coming your way, starting this weekend.

• Sun 5/3, 11am–5pm: Stop by and see FOCT at the @chestnuthill_pa Home & Garden Festival. We’ll be on the 8000 block of the Avenue (between Willow Grove and Abington) with Cresheim Trail shirts, maps, water bottles, and info.

• Sat 5/16, 9am–12pm: Love Your Park with FOCT at our annual cleanup of Cresheim Valley Drive and volunteer workday. We hope to have a big turnout for this to give the Drive between Germantown and Stenton Avenues a good cleaning, plus work in the Quarry Rock Garden — conveniently located along Cresheim Valley Drive. Please register at the link in our bio, as it helps Philadelphia Parks & Rec and Fairmount Park Conservancy coordinate this citywide event.

• Fri 5/29, 7–9pm: Toast to the Trail! We’d love for you to join us for the annual Cresheim Trail fundraiser, at the historic Venetian Social Club, which turned 100 on the Hill last year. Tickets start at just $40 and go a long way to support the work FOCT does.

More on all of the above soon.

#cresheimtrail

Come on in, it’s a rhodo photo party! Rhododendron

Come on in, it’s a rhodo photo party! Rhododendrons are common in Pennsylvania — at least 11 species are native to the commonwealth, both evergreen and deciduous, and they’re pretty common across the Wissahickon.

The ones pictured here are evergreens — the first three pics are in the Quarry Rock Garden near the stone staircase; the last two are along the mainstem Cresheim Trail just north of the SEPTA Chestnut Hill West bridge.

Catch these rhodo beauties while they’re still in bloom. 🌸

#cresheimtrail

You’re invited! 🎟️ Friends of the Cresheim Trail a

Kindest blessings to Mother Earth on her big day.

Kindest blessings to Mother Earth on her big day. We celebrated Earth Day with 31 volunteers this morning — on a weekday, in the rain. And we did our best to care for her in yon Quarry Rock Garden and Friends Loop.

We pulled every last invasive garlic mustard plant, we hacked and hauled little thorns of multiflora rose and big thorns of trifoliate orange, we cleared cut up deadfall, we freed a very nice native spicebush in a prominent part of the cliff from years of invasive overgrowth, and we removed 13 bags of trash, many of it decades old from the farthest part of the Friends Loop’s new section, along with a tire and big scrap metal. And all of this happened before the rain became too heavy to continue. Not bad for a Wednesday!

Our next volunteer outing will be Saturday May 16th’s cleanup of Cresheim Valley Drive, but come and see us before that at the Chestnut Hill Home & Garden Festival on Sunday May 3rd! More info on both to come.

#cresheimtrail

All right, let’s try this again: Earth Day, for re

All right, let’s try this again: Earth Day, for real! 🌎 Friends of the Cresheim Trail will host a weekday workday to show our love for Mother Earth. She’s been awaiting our collective hands in the Quarry Rock Garden for a while, so let’s put em to work this Wednesday, April 22nd.

We’ll meet at 9am at Mermaid Park in Chestnut Hill and hike in on the Friends Loop for an invasive plant whacking party, which in turn makes the native plants happy — plants like northern spicebush, which we’ll be putting a keen eye on. (See our post two before this one for more info.) We’ll be joined by David Bower and the @fowissahickon Q-Team, and we’d love your company too.

Once again, a shoutout to @athleticbrewing who are supporting our restoration efforts in the Quarry Rock Garden through a Two for the Trails grant.

#cresheimtrail

Maaaaan, we really hate to do this, but we’ve made

Maaaaan, we really hate to do this, but we’ve made the decision to err on the side of caution and begrudgingly cancel this Sunday’s volunteer workday. Potentially heavy rain and high winds are in the forecast, neither of which make for a safe or fun workday.

HOWEVER: The early forecast for next Wednesday looks pretty great for an Earth Day proper outdoors. So, let’s try that! If you’re available for a weekday workday, we’ll try all the same tasks in the same space at the same time: Wednesday, April 22nd, 9am–12pm in the Quarry Rock Garden. We’ll meet at Mermaid Park in Chestnut Hill (7645 Germantown Ave). Join us?

#cresheimtrail

(c) 2026 The Friends of the Cresheim Trail

x

Top