Another Side of Gettysburg

Last week took us to Gettysburg.  We visited one of our favorite wineries and found a new place to walk - both dog friendly.

We discovered Adams County Winery several years ago on the Tour de Tanks.  The Tour de Tanks is an event held every year in March during which you get to see the behind the scenes workings of wineries throughout York, Adams and Dauphin counties.  Adams County Winery is in Orrtanna, PA and is a lovely site with an varied selection of wines, although our favorite is Three Ships to the Wind.  They do have a retail store in downtown Gettysburg, but a trip to the winery is a must.  They offer concerts on their grounds, wine making classes and wine paring dinners in partnership with local restaurants.  At the time of arrival, we did not realize they were dog friendly, so we went in without Abby.  While making our selections, we learned of their open door policy for dogs, so we took her in for a visit.  She made a lot of new friends and had lots of things to sniff.

After our stop at the winery, we moved on to Strawberry Hill Nature Preserve.  This is a well maintained nature preserve east of Gettysburg  that offers 1, 3 and 6 mile hikes with various side trails to lengthen or shorten those trails - up to 12 miles.  WEAR BOOTS - it's Swamp Trail lives up to its name and is very muddy and you will have some small streams to cross.  When you arrive, there is a nice parking area and a hiking information center across the street which includes maps.  Make sure you take a map - the trail has moved and some of the older marks are no longer the appropriate trail.  The map we picked up is below. 



After you pick up your map at the log cabin, you go to the right of the cabin and see a well marked trail head.

From here, follow the directions found on the back of the map to determine where and how long you want to hike.

While hiking, we found well built bridges, well maintained trails, lots of information points and a heard of deer.  We did the 3 mile hike, but we intend on going back to hike the perimeter as well as the quarry trail.