Delaware Hiking Trails

This site is designed to provide quick, organized access to informative Delaware hiking websites. Hiking enthusiasts like you have created excellent web pages on Delaware hiking trails -- then posted those pages on free web servers -- only to be ignored by search engines. The purpose of this site is to provide a way to find these personal hiking pages, and make your research easier.

• American Discovery Trail The route of the ADT through Delaware travels about 44.6 miles of sidewalks and rural roads, most with paved shoulders. The trail passes through the towns of Lewes, Milton, and Bridgeville, but is mostly in open farmland. "Official" site.



• Bear Swamp Trail is located on the south end of Bear Swamp. Bear Swamp is the name given to the wetland area beyond the dike. Trail description & directions from Wildernet.com.



• Brandywine Trail Beginning in the north at its intersection with the Horseshoe Trail the Brandywine Trail follows Brandywine Creek, or Brandywine River, its namesake, to the outskirts of Wilmington, Delaware.



• The Chesapeake and Delaware Canal An easy amble along the historic Chesapeake and Delaware Canal, 7.5 miles. GORP site.



• Cypress Point Nature Trail 1.5 miles round-trip, offers a boardwalk over the wettest portion of the trail. Here you'll have sights of an ecosystem typically found much farther south, a bald cypress swamp. Trail description & directions from Wildernet.com



• Delaware Seashore State Park 6.25 mile trail. Description, map, etc. GORP site.



• Edward H. McCabe Preserve 143 acres and a mile of Broadkill River frontage near Milton. Although relatively small in size, this preserve harbors excellent examples of a number of different coastal plain habitats typical of the Chesapeake Bay Lowlands Ecoregion. On the Nature Conservancy page. Good info, not trail specific, but they can't be too hard to figure out once you have this info.



• General Trail list from Delaware State Parks. With descriptions, not a bad site.



• General Nature Conservancy page for the State of Delaware. Links to lots of good nature preserve and outdoorsy stuff.



• White Clay Creek Park also Killens Pond; numerous outstanding hiking photos with not much text by David L. Mills on the University of Delaware site. Link repaired April 2003



• Norman G. Wilder Wildlife Area An upland forest walk featuring mistletoe, holly, and clubmoss in the Norman G. Wilder Wildlife Area. GORP site.



• Wilmington Trail Club Wilmington, DE organization home page.

Delaware: Visit Our Chickens and Chemicals!

I'm trying to come up with a state slogan that will make people avoid Delaware. It's simply way too crowded these days. Too many people go to the beaches, too many people crowd the waterways, too many people trudging through the wildlife preserves. Delaware was my secret getaway -- everybody else used to just keep flying down I-95. I blame it on the mall. They started publicizing that stupid mall (people finally thought they had a reason to stop, besides at the toll booths) and so everybody got off the highway, promptly got lost, and wound up in a wildlife refuge.

"Hey Marty, this doesn't look like a shopping mall..."

Now you can barely move for all the traffic. But you can still see some of the most awe-inspiring migratory flights you'll ever experience. Mind boggling.

I'll never forget stopping at one of the wildlife refuges. I've forgotten the name; they're all named for one or another dull Delawarian and display middle initials prominently. Anyway, we stopped at the visitor's center and stared out over a typical backwater. Attractive enough, but no birds that we could see. Sandy and the twins went in to use the restrooms, and I was left outside to ponder the scenery. Suddenly the entire vista exploded into life...birds jumped from every hummock and bush and clump of grass...and took off in one enormous, flapping mass. It was like a hurricane. Had to be 40,000 birds. Within a minute they were out of view, probably over the bay somewhere. I had to rub my eyes, and simply gestured and gasped when my family returned.

Obviously there's more here that meets the eye. Much more than chickens or chemical plants, although Delaware offers both in profusion. The best hiking guidebook is Hiking Maryland and Delaware by David Lillard and Chris Reiter. Now if you've stumbled on this before, I assure you that this link goes to an actual printed book that you may buy and hold and read, and not some ridiculous .pdf download. (Imagine sitting in front of a computer to read about hiking!)

The other tome you may want to examine, and I strongly suggest it, is Judy Colbert's Maryland and Delaware: Off the Beaten Path this is not a hiking book exactly, but it will help you ferret out the places to see, and presents plenty of hiking opportunities as well. Soon you'll be stuck in traffic, probably behind a chicken truck.

-- Rick Bolger

Please click here for the Slackpacker web site

Want to add YOUR Delaware hiking page? It's free, it's easy, and there are no strings attached. Please click the "Submit a Site" button, above left, for instructions and complete information.

PS: Have a dinner invitation? Instead of bringing a bottle of humdrum wine or some meaningless flowers, consider bringing a copy of Like a Brother by Gerry Beckley, Robert Lamm, and Carl Wilson. If those names sound familiar, they should. Beckley is a key member of the group America, and you know his voice from Sister Golden Hair. Robert Lamm is still the driving force behind the group Chicago, perhaps his signature song is Saturday in the Park. The late Carl Wilson was the angelic-voiced youngest brother of the Wilson clan, also known as The Beach Boys. His was the ethereal lead on God Only Knows. This album was recorded just prior to Wilson's passing, finished by Beckley and Lamm, and released after a battle with the label. Few have heard it, but those who do are generally at a loss for words to describe the incredible beauty captured on this disc. It is arguably a cut above anything else released in the past decade. If you click on the link (to Amazon) you can listen to samples of a few of the selections.