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The Philadelphia segment of the Schuylkill River Trail runs about 42 miles down the Schuylkill River from Riverfront Park in Pottstown to Schuylkill Banks below the Philadelphia Museum of Art. It is paved and rail-grade flat nearly the whole way, on the old Pennsylvania Railroad bed through Phoenixville, Norristown, and Conshohocken, then on the Manayunk Canal towpath and Fairmount Park paths into Center City. Trailheads come every few miles, and the Perkiomen and Chester Valley trails branch off at Pawlings Road and Norristown. The riding is easy and often busy. Beyond Pottstown the Reading segment continues upriver to Reading.
Schuylkill River Trail: Philadelphia
Your comfort. Prognosticated.
-Cory
In a typical year the Schuylkill River Trail: Philadelphia has about 114 to 161 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 Schuylkill River Trail: Philadelphia!
In half of past years, color along the Schuylkill River Trail: Philadelphia peaks October 29 to November 8, typically around November 3. The trail has 30% deciduous coverage, with the majority being yellow-poplar, red maple, white oak, white ash, chestnut oak, and black oak.
The Schuylkill Navigation Company was chartered in 1815, and its canal began floating anthracite down the valley in 1825. The finished waterway ran 108 miles and used 92 lift locks to drop 588 feet. In 1859, its peak year, the canal moved 1.7 million tons of cargo. The Philadelphia and Reading Railroad opened along the same river in 1841. Within four years it hauled three times the canal's anthracite. In 1870 the navigation company leased its waterway to the Reading for 999 years. After 1913 only an occasional boat passed. The Pennsylvania Railroad answered the Reading with its own line up the valley, the Pennsylvania Schuylkill Valley Railroad, which reached Reading in 1884. Conrail's formation in 1976 closed that branch north of Manayunk. Between 1947 and 1979 the state filled most of the old canal with the coal silt it dredged from the river. In 1974 a group of Reading-area citizens founded the Schuylkill River Greenway Association. They won scenic river designation in 1978 and began the Schuylkill River Trail in 1979 on the old towpaths and railroad beds. More than 80 miles of a planned 120 are open today. This segment holds the corridor's downstream end: Montgomery County's 18 miles on the Pennsylvania Railroad bed from the city line to Mont Clare, Chester County's Cromby to Parker Ford section that opened in April 2013, the watered Manayunk Canal towpath dug in 1819, and the Schuylkill Banks boardwalk that opened in 2014.
Perkiomen TrailChester Valley TrailCross County TrailCynwyd Heritage TrailManayunk Bridge TrailSchuylkill River Trail: Reading
