Yesterday was a beech day in my household, time for a long hike in the Wissahickon and a trip to visit the Great Beech tree, more than 300 years old, up by the Tree House off Forbidden Drive. This tree is magnificent, more so on a lovely summer afternoon like yesterday.
There's much to recommend this kind of beech day. I'm sure The Shore was a good time this weekend, but I prefer the green and the solitude of the trails high above the Wissahickon Creek. It's surprisingly quiet and peaceful up there, except for the birds, and nicely deserted, though we did meet up with two women on horseback. Their mounts were friendly mares named Cocoa and Classy, and they were interested in apples, carrots, anything edible. Alas. We had nothing to offer but they let us pet them.
Their owners described the many deer they run across, and a park employee's declaration that she'd seen three coyotes recently, one carrying a dead groundhog across a field. I'm glad we met up with only horses and birds!
Besides the beeches, we saw a giant cucumber tree (Magnolia acuminata for you purists), which is a large native forest tree, a stand of bamboo, wildflowers and evergreens, and more wild raspberries than we could eat. I didn't feel guilty sampling these tart little wonders because there were lots more for the birds and animals.
It's clear Friends of the Wissahickon has done a great deal of trail work and because of that, we gracefully navigated the Judge Harold D. Saylor trail - it was during his watch as president of the Friends group that the Wissahickon Valley was declared a National Natural Landmark in 1966. This ensured that the valley would remain protected for future generations and we salute Judge Saylor and all involved!
But more work needs to be done on those trails. All I'll say is thank goodness it was still light. We wandered around for a good while. Things could be worse, of course, than wandering aimlessly around these leafy trails on a pleasant summer afternoon. I get it!
So that was my day at the beech. Tree, I mean. I highly recommend it.
