On Route 29, Colesville Road is Burnt Mills East park, it is on the same side of the road as the Trader Joe's and California Tortilla. This park has a reasonably sized parking area and a number of nice trails. Facing the trailheads, the trail on the right is closest to the Northwest Branch and it is called the Fall Line trail. It Proceeds downstream and ends when it meets the Northwest Branch trail. On the left is the Northwest Branch trail. In this area it is higher up the hill than the Northwest Branch stream, but it will eventually come down and meet the stream where the Fall Line Trail ends. The Fall line trail is the steeper, rockier of the two trails and is only suitable for hiking, whereas the Northwest Branch trail has been designed to allow biking too.
Another trail in the area is the Copperhead Run trail. There are 3 "chute" trails that connect it to the Northwest Branch.
The Northwest Branch itself is a good-size stream. In many places it is rocky, but other areas are smooth and placid.
One of the interesting, but noisy, sights is where Interstate 495 crosses the stream. The bridge is high above the trees, and although you can hear the traffic, when you are walking south it is hard to see the bridge until you are right under it.
We crossed that bridge as kids on the underside.
ReplyDeleteWhat year?
DeleteAnd we pulled ourselves inside the horizontal beam from one side to the other. This was when it was just built.
ReplyDeleteI knew almost every inch of that stretch of the Creek and most of the spur trails. That was 60 yrs ago. The stretch closest to Colesville Rd. had massive boulders that created chutes, falls and deep pools. Many of them were dynamited or jack hammered,to create rocky rapids and eliminating the deep pools. Further, the stream was channelized after Hurricane Agnes to about 200 yards from the 495 bridge. The creek has recovered some from this horrid bit of engineering.
ReplyDeleteAgnes sent a slew of County vehicles parked at the dam house lot and I heard some were never recovered.
ReplyDeleteAbt 20 years ago after a visit to my grandparents grave up the road I took a mini hike from Adelphi Mill. Reflecting on the formative years of our Utes, swimming in pools at the Rock, wading through sections, seining for fish with my brother (for a Smithsonian ecological study) and recalling sometimes suds forming in the rapids (from the laundromat above at Lockwood and 29 now TJ's?), black sewage goo oozing out of the two storm drain stand pipes on the Burnt Crest trail down and wondering how we ever escaped illness or skin disease. Taking the trail at the Mill there was nice interpretive outdoor museum style signs, the water seemed clear and clean corroborated by instructive signs for Anglers. I was impressed.