The Schuylkill River Sojourn below Port Clinton, entering Berks County.

Photo by Daniel P. Creighton

It's that time of year again.

The flowers are blooming, the bees are buzzing, the allergy sufferers are weeping. Yup, it's time to promote river sojourns.

The biggest, in this area anyway, is the seven-day, 112-mile trip on the Schuylkill River, from Schuylkill Haven to sunny Philadelphia.

Increasingly popular, the Schuylkill River Sojourn runs from June 6 to June 12 and, as if the word of the Thin Green Line staff were not enough to convince you of its popularity, know that Saturday June 6 and Sunday, June 7 are already fully booked.

As a past participant, I can vouch for this description as presented on the Web site of the Schuylkill River National Heritage Area, which organizes the trip each year:

Sometimes it is wet and wild. At other times it is peaceful and inspiring. There are a few rapids, calm water, plenty of laughs, songs at the campsites, and celebrations in the river towns. There is a little bit of everything in store for canoers and kayakers who take part in the week-long sojourn down the Schuylkill River that begins the first weekend of June. And even though the same route is paddled every year, a different river greets us every June.<br>

Last year the cost was $75 per day for adults. That includes meals, guides, transportation of canoes and kayaks as well as transportation to nightly special events and the cost of camping locations, but not canoe or kayak rental, necessary if you don't have your own to bring. The sojourn contracts with a rental facility, but you must make your own arrangements with them.

This link will take you to registration for the Schuylkill River Sojourn, which is now doing everything electronically. Since you are reading this on a computer, this presumably presents no problem for you dear reader.

Now, while the Schuylkill Sojourn may be the big dog in Southeast PA., know that there's another scrappy little sojourn moving up in the ranks as well.

The Perkiomen Creek is, with the exception of the Little Schuylkill River in Schuylkill County, the largest tributary of the Schuylkill itself.

Below, canoers on the Perkiomen Creek.

And, as such, the folks at the Perkiomen Watershed Conservancy felt their redoubtable creek deserved a sojourn of its own, and so it has one.

This one is only a day long and covers only a portion of the creek, whose watershed reaches from Berks and Bucks counties deep into Montgomery County.

The day is Saturday, May 23, from about 9 a.m. to early afternoon.

Experienced canoers and kayakers as well as canoe beginners can explore the Perkie between Schwenksville and the Skippack Creek confluence. The 2009 Perkiomen Creek Sojourn is sponsored by Keenan, Ciccitto and Associates, a law firm headquartered in Collegeville.

Registration, which is now open, must be received before May 11 at 4:30 p.m. Participation fees are $30 for members and $50 for non-members of the Perkiomen Watershed Conservancy.

Canoe rental fees are $25 for members and $35 for non-members. All canoes must have two paddlers at all times. All participants must wear personal flotation devices (pfd’s) at all times. Sojourn participants may use their own boats (kayaks or canoes) or they can rent a canoe from the Conservancy. (A limited number of rental canoes are available.) If renting, participants should already have a canoeing partner when they register.

The Perkiomen Sojourn will begin at the Conservancy Headquarters at 1 Skippack Pike in Schwenksville. The Sojourn will end at Hoy Park on Arcola Road in Lower Providence Township where a picnic lunch will be provided.

The middle Perkiomen Creek between Schwenksville and the Skippack Creek boasts forests and birds of all kinds including mallards, many types of hawks, great blue herons, cormorants and mergansers. Even an occasional bald eagle is spotted along the Perkie.

Those interested in participating should follow this link for more information, or contact the Conservancy at 610.287.9383 to register.

We we've learned anything at the Thin Green Line, a debate we'd rather avoid right now thank you very much, it is that there is no substitute for experience, for getting out there and seeing for yourself.

So if you've never been on the river or the creeks that literally run through your back yard, you are really missing out on an experience that could change your whole outlook about where you live.

Recently, I'll admit, I have been blogging about environmental matters that affect the planet, the world, the nation, but could not be said to directly affect Pottstown and its environs.

But as any good tree-hugger knows, the mantra of environmentalism is to "think globally and act locally."

(Personally, I've always been fond of a little ego-centric modification, "think golbally, report locally."

Anyway, I think during the past dozen posts or so, we've covered the "think globally" part, so I wanted to alert all nine of my regular readers to an opportunity to act locally.

To paraphrase Paul Revere, one is by land and one is by sea.
The first is an annual event, when they can muster enough volunteers.

If you’ve ever wondered what happens to trash after its thrown into the Schuylkill River, the answer is, it usually ends up washed up along the shoreline.

And then, if the circumstances are right, the folks from the Greater Pottstown Watershed Alliance climb into their canoes and clean it up.

That will happen next Saturday, Aug. 2, when a group of volunteers — anyone reading this article is invited — will meet at the boat ramp in North Coventry, just downstream of the South Hanover Street bridge, to start grabbing all the trash and tires they can fit into their boats.

All boats that can navigate to there are welcome to join the fun.

As organizer Bill Cannon notes, “we always run out of space in the boats before we run out of trash.”

Meet at the boat ramp at 8 a.m. and the group plans to move downstream to the boat ramp at Tow Path Park in East Coventry and be finished by 1 p.m.

If you can’t participate on the water, you can help by shuttling paddlers back to the North Coventry ramp or by helping empty the boats at Tow Path when the clean up is complete.

If you're more of a land-lubber, you can choose a different activity the same day, the regular maintenance work on the portion of the Schuylkill River Trail known as the Thun Trail.

That same Saturday, starting around 9 a.m., the Schuylkill River Greenway Association Trailkeepers and the Berks County Bicycle Club will work on tree and brush cutting, litter pickup and the installation of a bollard, and the paintaing of said bollard.

(A "bollard," in case you're wondering, is a fancy planning professional word for metal post.)

Volnteers can meet at the trail head at Morlatton Village, located on the eastern end of Old Philadelphia Pike in Amity. You can show up at any time to help out

If it rains, the work will occur Aug. 9. If you want to know if its raining hard enough to postpone, call Greg Marshall at 610-780-3195.

I won't preach here about how important this kind of work is, because those who know already do it, and those who don't are less likely to start.

I can say as someone who has ridden on the trail towards Birdsboro, that I appreciate it.

That trail, by the way, just got a whole lot longer.

A small section of trail in Birdsboro, from Route 82 to Armorcast Road, will be officially opened Friday by the Schuylkill River Heritage Area, which oversees the trail and which welcomes Michael DeBerardinis, Pennsylvania's secretary of Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, as their special guest.

The ribbon cutting takes place at 11:30 a.m. if you're in to that sort of thing.

The .68-mile section finalizes the link between Pottstown and Reading, part of which runs on Old Schuylkill Road to Route 724 for the section between Gibraltar and Birdsboro.

The rest of the trail, however, is off-road on old sections of abandoned railroad lines, making it not only through some lovely landscapes, including many views of the river, but also wonderfully flat for those tree-huggers, such as myself, who have hugged as many lagers as they have tree trunks.