Are you looking for some outdoor adventure? Head to Keehner Park, a 123-acre park located in West Chester.
We went to the park for the West Chester Concert Series, a live music event held in their amphitheater. It was fun to get to explore the park AND listen to some live music that evening. If you go to their concerts, the area is pretty well shaded and some seating is available along the grassy hill (see photo). There’s a covered picnic shelter there as well but my guess is you’d have to get there early to grab a seat in the shelter.
After listening to some tunes, we decided to go take a look at the park itself. They have a great playground with a large play structure and lots of swings. There’s a bathroom right there at the playground.
But here’s the real star of the show….
The creek is part of the east fork of the Mill Creek. It’s rather shallow (or at least it was while we were there) and would be a GREAT place to play and explore.
Want to head to the creek? From the playground pictured above, look towards the woods and find the trailhead opening (not marked). The trail is just dirt (not paved, no gravel or mulch).
A word of warning here – getting to the creek involves going down a number of steps on the way down and a long set of stairs to get back up (see pics below). While it’s not terribly strenuous, it is a lot of steps and I personally would want all my littles to be able to navigate all those steps on their own. It would be a BEAR to carry a child up the steps. AND the trail is not marked at all – we just walked and explored. The trail is obvious but there are a few options here and there. We just followed the creek.
Going down…
And coming up… the picture doesn’t show all the steps by the way.
If you want to explore even more of the park you’ll find an 1800’s log cabin, a fire pit, and numerous picnic shelters with grills.
There is a second playground at the park too. That playground is near tennis courts and soccer fields.
Keehner Park is located at 7411 Barrett Road, West Chester
