places where you won't be able to wipe the wag off your dog's tail - Holtwood PA
The Park
The Pennsylvania Power and Light Company manages 5,000 acres of recreational land surrounding the Holtwood hydroelectric plant. You can camp, enjoy a picnic, play some ball, do a little fishing - or hike. There are 39 miles of marked trails along the lower Susquehanna, most on the long distance Mason-Dixon and Conestoga trails. Canine hikers will want to head for Kellys Run where the 6-mile trail system has been designated a National Recreation Trail.
The Walks
Starting out on the blue-blazed Kellys Run Trail you begin routinely enough at a picnic pavilion and drop quickly into airy woods of mature maples and poplar. Nothing special as you roll along. Then the trail drops abruptly and you are introduced to Kellys Run. Soon you are squeezing through thin avenues in a Wissahickon schist canyon as you follow the roiling stream down to the Susquehanna. In places where the rocks pinch the stream tightly enough, deep pools form to lure your dog in for a swim. After you reach the end of the run the character of this outing changes again. Old access roads are used
to climb relentlessly back to your car. Benches appear in the woods as if by magic in this leg of the hike. Your final steps will be through rolling farm fields and, finally, ballfields. Near the parking area, circling around Kellys Run Trail, is the 3/4-mile Oliver Patton Trail that was also named a National Recreation Trail in 1992. This lively little track, named for the original farmer on these hills, traverses a stand of Norway spruce and white pine planted by the power company.
Where The Paw Meets The Earth: Dirt woods and grass fields
Workout For Your Dog - Some major climbs lurking on these trails
Swimming - Kellys Run is mostly for splashing
Restrictions On Dogs - None
Something Extra
Several routes will take you out of the Kellys Run gorge up to the Pinnacle, a grassy picnic spot on a bluff more than 507 feet above Lake Aldred. The best route is the Conestoga Trail, carved by the Lancaster Hiking Club along the river. At the Pinnacle you can fill your dog bowl with water in season.
Phone - (800) 354-8383
Admission Fee - None
Directions - Holtwood, Lancaster County; the Holtwood Environmental Preserve stretches across both sides of the lower Susquehanna River. To reach Kellys Run turn on River Road (the first or last turn in Lancaster County) and make your first left onto Old Holtwood Road. The parking area for the preserve is on the right.
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