Hiking in Valley Forge

Valley Forge National Historic Park | Horse-Shoe Trail, Wolfinger Trail, Valley Creek Trail, and the Pawling Sycamore | King of Prussia, PA | April & May 2025

Even though we weren’t staying close to Valley Forge this year, we still visited it several times during our month in Southeastern PA. And despite having visited so many times in the past two years, we managed to find a couple of new trails to hike this year.

One evening, Curtis came home early so he and I decided to go for a hike together, just the two of us. We chose to do a longer, less blind dog friendly hike through the woods on some new-to-us trails. We parked at the Washington’s Headquarters parking lot, then walked through the grounds, across PA-23, and made our way up to the trailhead off of Owen Drive. There are a couple of parking spots here, but not much space, so parking in the nearby larger lot just seemed like a good idea. From here, we began hiking up the wide, gravel path, which ascended gradually deeper into the woods. When we came to the second fork in the path, we turned right on the Horse-Shoe Trail.

The trail became more narrow, and had a few switchbacks as it continued rising in elevation. The main highlight for this trail was definitely the ruins from an old bottling plant. The stone ruins were neat to walk through, and stone work around the nearby creek formed a few small waterfalls. From here, we continued walking uphill until we finally reached the ridge of Mount Misery. We took a small detour on a side trail out of the park so that Curtis could attempt a letterbox, then continued on Mount Misery Trail. We turned left at the Wolfinger Trail, then made a steep descent down steps until we reached the Valley Creek Trail – we’re pretty sure we’ve hiked that trail before. We then followed the creek North, stopping to admire small picturesque spots along the way, until we met back up with the Horseshoe Trail, and retraced our steps back to Washington’s Headquarters. Altogether this hike was almost 4 miles, and took us about an hour and a half to complete. If you’re interested, check out our Alltrails recording here. We rewarded ourselves with Mod Pizza, back at our favorite spot for restaurants near King of Prussia.

The next day, Curtis had a day off, so we returned to Valley Forge with Charlotte. This time, we chose to walk on the North side of the Schuylkill River, with the goal of seeing the Pawling Sycamore tree. We parked near the Wetherill Barn, then walked passed the private residence to the trail. This trail was a wide path, easy for Charlotte, and mostly tree covered. There were some other historic buildings on the way that were gated off, but those were made especially beautiful by the hanging wisteria in full bloom. I think this is the first time we’ve seen wisteria since living in Charleston, SC!

We finally found the sycamore, which has been here for over 250 years and is one of the oldest trees in the area (Washington’s men burned almost all the trees during their winter at Valley Forge). It has some similarities to Angel Oak in South Carolina, with long tree branches that stretch out so far, growing all the way down to the ground and then some. We wandered around the branches, admiring the beauty. It’s not as heavily protected as Angel Oak, so we hope people continue to respect and protect this beautiful piece of history! Altogether this trail is about 3/4 of a mile long, and totally worth the walk if you have extra time in Valley Forge.