Love Hiking Around Philly? Bookmark This Awesome New Hiking Resource 

John Heinz Wildlife Refuge | Photo via @bewellphilly

The Wissahickon is to my hiking life as Sweetgreen is to my work-lunch life: It’s great and it’s my  go-to because it’s great. But, like I fear I’ll Sweetgreen myself out because I go there more than anyone with 7,839 lunch options within a block of their office should, I am often afraid that I will someday Wissahickon myself out. After all, one can only hike past Devil’s Pool so many times before they stop thinking it’s beautiful and cool and start wondering instead why (oh, whyyyyy) anyone with a brain would willingly jump into that oh-so-gross water, right? And that’s where the new online Philly hiking resource Philly Day Hiker comes in.

Created by Lauren Hallden, a local web designer on the weekdays and an avid hiker on the weekends, the new online resource is home to helpful information — from trail maps to photos of what you can expect to reviews — about places to hike around Philly. It also serves as inspiration to stray from the trails of your usual go-tos. As Hallden says on the site, “You probably know about Fairmount Park and Pennypack, but there are lots of wild places to explore within a 90-minute drive of Center City. Philly Day Hiker is my attempt at cataloguing them.”

Right now, Hallden has 16 hiking places around Philly listed on the site — including places like John Heinz National Wildlife Refuge and Belmont Plateau, plus not-your-average hiking spots like Graffiti Pier — though not all of them have reviews by her. As she tells us, “I’ve been to all these places listed, but a few of them I haven’t hiked for a few years and I want to revisit them before writing up a review. I definitely want to keep adding to the list, and I’ll totally take additions/suggestions/corrections via email or Twitter. Just this week someone suggested a park I’ve never heard of just across the Tacony-Palmyra bridge, so I think that’s my hike for the weekend!”

So, if hiking was in your plans for the weekend, hop on over to Philly Day Hiker and consider tackling a new trail. And if you have additions you think other Philly hiking lovers should know about, give Hallden a shout on Twitter here.

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