Start of the new Bateman Trail off Bleim Road, west of North Pleasant View Road.
LOWER POTTSGROVE PA – The former Bateman-Romer property on Bleim Road, which Lower Pottsgrove (PA) Township bought for use as open space in March 2008 at a price of $200,000, now officially contains the Bateman Trail. To walk it, however, you’ll want to wear really rugged boots.
The township recently finished roughing out the trail, which begins on the south side of Bleim Road about a half-mile west of North Pleasant View Road. Workers cut a 20-foot-wide swath from the roadside, southwest through trees and over body-sized boulders, to where – sometime in the future – it would connect to other open parcels and an anticipated town-wide trail system.
Township Assistant Manager Alyson Elliott announced completion of the trail-blazing last Monday (June 1, 2009) to the Board of Commissioners during the first of its two monthly meetings.
At present, only a Montgomery County (PA) open space medallion marks the start of the trail. No parking is available nearby. Privately owned properties, which are clearly posted against trespassing, abut the parcel on its east and west sides.
Farther east of the trail, on the north side of Bleim at its intersection with North Pleasantview, lie several more acres of open space planned for use as a future township park. About a mile northwest of that corner is Sprogels Run Park, where the township has already begun building a boardwalk and nature trail.
Open space parcels in the northern center of the township all are crossed by sources of Sprogels Run, one of the township’s three major streams; the others are Sanatoga Creek and Hartenstine Creek. Sprogels Run empties into the Schuylkill River near Hart and Sanatoga Station roads, where Lower Pottsgrove owns more open space, its Schuylkill River Park.
All the components are intended to someday tie together, Elliott noted, for hiking, leisurely walking, and nature exploration.
The Bleim Road property formerly was owned by Mr. and Mrs. Richard Bateman and Ms. Sharon Romer, and was purchased in part using county open space grant money.
Related (to the Lower Pottsgrove Commissioners’ June 1 meeting):
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