By Brian Schwarz
I was teaching at Temple University the year I wandered into the overgrown woods of West Fairmount Park with a very specific plan.
From satellite images, it looked like this entire section of the park might hold together as one continuous loop. Not a marked trail. Not something designed as it exists today. But something that hinted at an earlier structure. A system that may have once been part of a more elegant park layout, now grown over and left to evolve on its own.
I wanted to see if it still worked.
I started near Chamounix Drive with that loop already mapped out in my head. The goal wasn’t to wander. It was to stay within the shape of the woods and link together whatever paths remained to complete the full circuit.
Once inside, the overgrown nature of the woods was immediately clear. These weren’t manicured trails, and they weren’t marked. But they were there. Worn in just enough to follow, branching off in multiple directions, constantly giving you options.
And every so often, something would feel different.
A stretch that ran just a little too straight. A curve that seemed too deliberate. A sense that beneath the overgrowth, there had once been intention. Not obvious, not preserved, but still present if you were paying attention.
At each split, I made decisions based on orientation. I knew where the edges of the woods were supposed to be. I knew roughly how the loop should wrap. The question was whether the remnants of this older structure would still connect.
They did.
Moving through Belmont Woods, the terrain shifted in ways that confirmed where I was. Lower sections tightened with thicker growth and water moving through. Higher ground opened along the ridge near Chamounix. Even without signs, the landscape aligned with the plan.
At times, the presence of the Schuylkill Expressway defined the outer edge. Not something I needed to reach, but something that confirmed I was staying within the boundary of the loop.
The key point came at the crossing of Belmont Mansion and Chamounix Drive. That was the midpoint. If everything connected cleanly to that point, then the loop was real. I crossed once, exactly where expected, and went right back into the woods.
From there, it was about closing it.
The second half followed the same logic. Stay within the system. Keep the direction consistent. Use whatever path held the line of the loop, whether it felt like a worn trail or something that had simply been reclaimed by the woods.
And it held all the way through.
By the time I returned to where I started, I had completed just over five miles. One road crossing. No marked route. No need for one.
What looked like a possibility from above turned out to be fully walkable on the ground.
The overgrown woods of West Fairmount Park feel like something that was once shaped and then left behind. Not abandoned, but absorbed. If you understand how to read it, the structure is still there.
You don’t follow a trail here.
You follow what remains.
