Oreland Has Two Entrances to the Same Trail. Most Neighbors Only Know One.
September 10, 2026
September 10, 2026
Drive down Pennsylvania Avenue past Christ's Lutheran Church and you'll see a small parking lot most people register as church overflow. It isn't. It's one of two ways into Piszek Preserve, a 36-acre stretch of woodland and wetland that runs along Sandy Run creek behind the houses most Oreland residents have lived next to for years without walking through.
The other way in sits about half a mile away, tucked into the entrance of the Springfield Manor development off Oreland Mill Road. Same preserve. Same 0.6-mile trail. Completely different first impression. If you've only ever used one of these, you've been experiencing half of what's actually back there.
The church-side approach on Pennsylvania Avenue drops you into the preserve fast. The trail starts with a short, noticeable decline, close to a 12 percent grade for the first stretch, before settling into the gentle up and down that defines the rest of the walk. You're in tree cover for most of the warmer months, though the shade thins near the far end. After rain, expect some pooling in low spots, nothing that stops a walk, just enough that sneakers beat sandals.
What most people don't know is what the land is actually sitting next to. Piszek Preserve borders the site of the historic Emlen House, an 18th-century estate that George Washington used as winter quarters. Wissahickon Trails, the nonprofit that stewards this stretch of Montgomery County, began working with the Montgomery County Lands Trust, local governments, and area landowners back in 2004 specifically to protect the most sensitive parts of that estate's land. The preserve you're walking through is the result of two decades of that work, not a leftover patch someone forgot to develop.
The trail includes a wooden boardwalk footbridge, 93 inches wide, no steps, with safety barriers on both sides. It's a small detail, but it tells you this was built for people who actually use it regularly, not just a nod to a checklist.
The Oreland Mill Road entrance feels like a different park entirely, even though it isn't. There's no church parking lot, no obvious sign from the main road. You walk into Springfield Manor like you're visiting a neighbor, and the trailhead appears at the edge of the development. Same gentle 5 to 10 percent grades. Same asphalt and boardwalk combination. But the approach is quieter, more residential, less announced.
Here's the part that changes how you think about the neighborhood: this entrance sits close to the same stretch of Oreland Mill Road that holds three other public spaces most residents already use separately. Once you see them on the same road, the preserve stops feeling like an isolated nature walk and starts feeling like the missing link in a walkable loop that's been sitting in plain sight.
| Entrance | Cross street | First impression | What it connects to |
|---|---|---|---|
| Church-side | Pennsylvania Avenue | Fast descent, open sky near the start | Penn Restaurant and Rosario's Pizza, both a short walk down Pennsylvania Ave |
| Springfield Manor | Oreland Mill Road | Quiet, residential, no signage from the main road | Cisco Park, Henry R. Chiaramonte Children's Park, Marlow Field |
Walk out the Oreland Mill Road side and you're a few minutes from Cisco Park, a 13-acre complex with its own walking trail, a picnic pavilion, an ADA-accessible playground, and a fishing pond that the Friends of Hillcrest Pond stock with trout before opening day every year. In summer, the township runs free concerts at the gazebo next to that pond. Cisco Park is also where Springfield Township holds its Annual Community Day, which means the same 300-yard stretch of Oreland Mill Road that leads into the preserve also leads to the one day a year when most of the township shows up in one place.
Keep walking and you'll pass the Henry R. Chiaramonte Children's Park, a small tot lot on the 300 block of Oreland Mill Road that started as part of a 2010 neighborhood drainage project and was later renamed to honor a young Oreland resident who died from Sudden Unexpected Death in Childhood. A 2021 improvement project added new swings and an ADA-accessible path, partly funded through a $72,215 federal Community Development Block Grant administered by Montgomery County. It's easy to walk past without knowing the story. Once you know it, the park reads differently.
A few blocks over, at the corner of Lyster and St. Clair Roads, sits Marlow Field, home to Springfield Little League Baseball. When games aren't running, the fields are open to any township resident who wants to use them.
None of these spaces were designed as a single system. But walking the preserve from the Oreland Mill Road side makes it obvious they function as one anyway.
Oreland doesn't have a commercial main street the way some of its neighbors do. What it has instead is a civic calendar that's been running since 1950, when the Oreland Lions Club was chartered. The club's fingerprints are on most of the year's fixed points:
The club also supports the Oreland-Wyndmoor Little League and runs an eyeglass recycling program for residents who can't afford new pairs. None of this is flashy. It's also not something you'd find by driving through looking for storefronts. You find it by living here long enough to notice that the same organization has been quietly running the neighborhood's social calendar for over 75 years.
Wissahickon Trails, the organization behind Piszek Preserve, is running eight guided hikes this fall along the Green Ribbon Trail, the 10.5-mile trail system it manages across the broader watershed. If you've never walked the preserve with someone who actually knows the land, a guided hike is the easiest way to finally connect the two entrances instead of treating them as separate walks.
The organization also runs an Ales for Trails passport, $50 for access to a free item at participating local breweries, wineries, and distilleries, with proceeds going toward trail maintenance and water quality work in the watershed. It's a small, direct way to put money into the ground you're walking on rather than just enjoying it for free.
September is the right window. The heat breaks, the pooling from summer storms tends to ease, and the tree cover along the trail starts to turn before it thins out completely.
Start at the Springfield Manor entrance on Oreland Mill Road. Walk the 0.6 miles through Piszek Preserve, cross the boardwalk footbridge, and come out at the Pennsylvania Avenue side by Christ's Lutheran Church. From there, it's a short walk to either Penn Restaurant, a cash-only diner known for its Italian French toast and cheesesteak omelette, or Rosario's Pizza a few doors down. Eat, then walk back the way you came, this time noticing the entrance you usually skip.
Most people who live in Oreland have done half of this walk dozens of times. Almost nobody does both halves in the same afternoon. That's the piece worth changing.
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