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The Northwest Lancaster County River Trail follows the east bank of the Susquehanna River for about 14 miles between Columbia and Falmouth, linking the river towns of Columbia, Marietta, Bainbridge, and Falmouth. It rides the old Pennsylvania Main Line Canal corridor, so the grade is canal-flat the whole way, with only a few feet of change end to end. The surface is mostly paved, with smooth crushed stone on some stretches. The route passes through Point Rock Tunnel below Chickies Rock, under the stone arches of the Shocks Mill railroad bridge, past iron furnace ruins and canal locks, and along the White Cliffs of Conoy, with the Norfolk Southern main line close beside it for much of the way.
Northwest Lancaster County River Trail
Your comfort. Prognosticated.
-Cory
In a typical year the Northwest Lancaster County River Trail has about 113 to 157 days of excellent weather for popular activities such as hiking, dog walking, e-biking, running, birding, biking, and walking, with April, May, and October the best months.
Hourly comfort scores for the next 15 days of weather, tuned to your activity and your own thresholds.
Plan your visit to this trail. Get the best windows for a comfortable outing.
Enjoy the Northwest Lancaster County River Trail!
In half of past years, color along the Northwest Lancaster County River Trail peaks October 26 to November 8, typically around November 1. The trail has 23% deciduous coverage, with the majority being yellow-poplar, red maple, chestnut oak, white oak, and black oak.
Boats first dodged Conewago Falls at Falmouth through the Conewago Canal, a cut of less than a mile dug between 1793 and 1797. Thirty years later the state built something far bigger over the same ground. The Eastern Division of the Pennsylvania Canal, part of the Main Line of Public Works, ran from Columbia up the Susquehanna to the mouth of the Juniata, and mules on its towpath towed the freight of the young commonwealth past Marietta, Bainbridge, and Falmouth. Iron furnaces grew up along the bank at Chickies Rock and Marietta to use the water and the traffic, and the Vesta Furnace at Marietta ran from 1868 into the 1920s. The state sold the Main Line to the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1857. The railroad kept the canals in halfhearted operation while its own tracks took over the river bank, and it bored Point Rock Tunnel through 180 feet of rock under Chickies Rock. Norfolk Southern trains still run the corridor today. Trail building came in pieces. East Donegal Township created a riverfront greenway in 2007 and finished paving it in the fall of 2009, and Lancaster County, Columbia, Marietta, East Donegal, and Conoy Townships spent more than twenty years stitching the rest together with Pennsylvania DCNR and Lancaster County Solid Waste Management Authority funding. The finished trail reuses stretches of the original towpath and passes canal locks, furnace ruins, and the old quarry at Billmeyer.
Chickies Rock Overlook Trail
