Audubon Loop Trail & Mont Clare Connector Trail

Experience the wonders of nature, as John James Audubon did, along the Lower Perkiomen.

 

Opened in June 2006, The Audubon Loop Trail links the Schuylkill River Trail at Pawlings Road with Lower Perkiomen Park and SEPTA Route 99 at Egypt Road, providing another Campbell Thomas designed link in Montgomery County's ever-growing trail network. An immediate success, the Audubon Loop, combined with existing trails on the opposite bank of the Perkiomen Creek, has been heavily used by walkers, hikers and bikers to explore the beauty of the lower Perkiomen Valley. Moreover, the Audubon Loop Trail has reduced parking demands at Mill Grove and increased visitation. Operated by the Pennsylvania Audubon Society, Mill Grove was John James Audubon's first home in North America. Eighteen years old at the time of his arrival, Audubon spent much of his time roaming the wooded hills along the Perkiomen Creek and the Schuylkill River hunting, observing, collecting, sketching, and developing his life-long love of the feathered and furred residents of North America.

The Audubon Loop Trail links to the County's Mont Clare Connector Trail, opened in Spring 2008. The Mont Clare Connector extends the Schuylkill River Trail from its current end at the beginning of the Perkiomen Trail to the major center of Mont Clare/Phoenixville at Route 29, providing for the first time a water-level, traffic-free route all the way to Center City Philadelphia.

These expanded walking and bicycling opportunities continue to significantly increase the perception of Montgomery County as an affordable, attractive, and environmentally positive place to live and work. Continued coordination with SEPTA, both as a feeder mode, and with such programs as “Bike-on-Transit” will make the immediate area along the Mont Clare Connector and Audubon Loop truly accessible by bicycle and public transportation.

Great care was taken to thread the Audubon Loop Trail through the landscape, often along field edges.

Location:  Upper & Lower Providence Townships, Montgomery County, PA

Client: Montgomery County Planning Commission
Funding: Montgomery County Open Space Fund

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