The Conewago Trail, a five-mile stretch of former rail bed from Route 230 near Elizabethtown to the Lebanon County line, is due to officially reopen on Saturday, Sept. 1.
The trail, http://www.co.lancaster.pa.us/parks/cwp/view.asp?a=676&q=518283&parksNav=|7871|, is Lancaster County’s oldest linear park. It has been under reconstruction s
ince April. The $541,000 project added a base of stone, to drain water from the trail, topped by two inches of crushed stone, and asphalt where farmers cross the trail with tractors, Ad Crable reports on the New Era’s Outdoors page today.
Since 2002, the county park trail has connected to the Lebanon Valley Rail-Trail at the county line, http://www.lvrailtrail.com/index.html. The Lebanon County non-profit group has developed a 12.5 mile section of the trail north to Whitman Road near Cornwall. Lebanon Valley Rails to Trails soon plans to develop the last 2.5 miles of trail into Lebanon city. Last year, the group completed a .4 mile spur connecting the trail with Mount Gretna. (The spur makes for a nice mid-trail break at the Jigger Shop for ice cream.)
The heavily used Lancaster County section of the trail gets an estimated 60,000 bicyclists, joggers, walkers and horseback riders annually, Crable reports. Although contractor Regele Inc. is still completing touch up work, the trail is now largely open. Only horses are banned from the trail until the official Sept. 1 opening while the surface cures and strengthens.
Crable also reports that a bicycle shop, catering to trail users, is moving to a location along the trail and Hershey Road.
The Conewago reconstruction project will also serve as a model for trails the county is planning to construct at Money Rocks park, in eastern Lancaster County, and the Conestoga Greenway Trail, in Lancaster City.
