Wissihickon

A great biking area located within the City of Philadelphia. Wissahickon has everything - a nice sedate gravel road for the less-adventurous, up through steep downhills loaded with rocks for the diehards. As you'll see from the picture below, the area is a valley through which the Wissahickon Creek runs. Along the creek runs Forbidden Drive, named because cars are forbidden there. All trails run uphill from Forbidden Drive, which is quite useful in case of an injury or equipment failure, in which case you can usually walk to the next long downhill and soon be back on the drive. There's little danger of being stranded out in the wilderness.

Here's a Google Earth picture of the area (Here is the link if you have Google Earth). You'll see the accesses from the northeast from Valley Green Drive and from the southwest from Wises Mill Road off of Henry Avenue. Both of these lead to parking lots near the Valley Green Inn, although the Inn and the parking lots are hidden by the trees in the picture. .

Here's a topographic map of one ride. Starting out from Valley Green and heading north, cross Wises Mill Road and take the next left up the hill. Follow that trail to the end, ride down Summit Ave to the bottom of the hill and turn left back into the park. Follow that trail until it comes to Wises Mill Road; go up the hill and turn left just before Henry Avenue. Explore from there. You'll see from the map that we climbed 1776 vertical feet that day and rode for 9.6 miles.

This is the "Valley Green Ridge Ride". It starts out similarly to the ride shown above, but stays on the northwest side of Forbidden Drive. It's as good a "beginner ride" as there is out there since there are less rocky downhills than are found on the other side of Forbidden Drive. I bailed out early on this ride and rode back up Forbidden Drive. The rest of the group took the trails back up the east side of the drive and would have ridden a longer course with additional hills.

A local group meets at Valley Green on Thursday nights starting out between 5:30 and 6:30 depending on the time of year. We also ride this area occasionally on Saturdays. The group was interviewed for an article in the Friends of the Wissahickon newsletter, which starts on page 12 of the issue referenced here .

Geocoded Google Earth Images

This Google Earth file contains pictures taken at various junctions of the trail behind Valley Green. It shows the pictures on a Google Earth image, letting viewers see the locations on the map of places along the ride. I tried to get the main trail junctions on the route to show locations where riders need to turn or cross to stay on the trail. I'll add additional shots as I take them.

Wiss VG quadrant tour.kmz

If you're interested in how this file was created, go to the Geocoding Pictures

2006 Season

Here's the "Southeast Ridge" trail, which runs from Valley Green down to the parking lot along Lincoln Drive. From the parking lot at Valley Green, cross the bridge and take the first right along the creek. It's a nice trail - a bit rocky in spots but less challenging than the "Indian" trail or some others on that side of the creek