LE-LI FISH HATCHERY AND EMMAUS WILDLIFE CONSERVANCY - LEHIGH COUNTY

LE-LI FISH HATCHERY AND EMMAUS WILDLIFE CONSERVANCY - LEHIGH COUNTY

We started our hiking day off with a trip to the Le-Li Fish Hatchery near Emmaus Pa. The hatchery is located off route 78...go right on Rt 29 S and then take a left turn onto Fish Hatchery Road...the hatchery is on your left. There are hundreds of trout and fish here which is awesome for the kids....most of the pools are covered with nets due to birds eating the trout (though the fish can still be fed and seen fine as its netting on top) but two pools are open and have trout and ducks to feed. The hatchery is free and has some picnic areas and a field for the kids to play in. The shop is located south of the parking lot after the trout pools...you can buy huge bags of food for $2 each here....we bought three of them and they lasted for nearly an hour. Bring along wipes and hand sanitizer because the food is oily and you will smell like fish ...haha. 

Feeding the Fish!!

Hungry Trout!!!

After a fun and sunny hour feeding the fish it was onto the trail. The Emmaus Wildlife Conservancy is located off Route 29S again and a left onto Riverbend Road. About half a mile down make a right onto Orchid Road....the conservancy is on your right. This is a nice little recreation area to have a picnic and take in some wildlife. The trail networks total about 3 miles but the smaller trails close to the conservancy   only total around 1.2 miles. We took the bird trail right as you enter the conservancy and then looped to the right and caught the Pheasant Trail. This connected to a boardwalk wetlands trail and then looped back to the parking area. 

And away we go!!!

Always in the lead....

Right up the trail (which is a nice easy walkway with mulch chips) there is a bird watching area with seating...about 10 different bird houses circle a small frog pond.....another small bird watching area with a picnic table is about 20 feet from here) ...we should have had lunch here instead of at the table in the park itself. 

Sitting at the bird watching area

Exploring the Second Little Frog Habitat Pond

In Mid-July lots and lots of natural Raspberries along this trail!!

After a short walk down the trail...it's onto the Pheasant Trail. Shortly off this trail is a side path (Garden Trail) that runs a circle loop through a beautiful flowery meadow. We found some honey bee hives here and spent about 15 minutes watching them do there thing. It was really neat to hear them buzzing and fanning inside the hive to cool it down. We bravely ignored not standing in the path of the entranceway to the hives (as the sides where really overgrown with grass)...we had bees on us but they stayed pretty good until about 15 minutes in when they began to get a bit more aggressive so we let them get back to work!

The Pheasant Trail!!

The Bee Hives!!!

Watching the Bees!!!!

From this point the trail merged with a creekside swamp / wetlands trail with a boardwalk. This was really neat and had small points around it that had special activities such as a creek access point....swamp view...and frog pond habitat.

On the Boardwalk!!

Wading in the Creek!

Beautiful but very cold...even in Mid-July

The swamp viewing bridge....even though it looks rickety it was all good!!

All of us on watching frogs and minnows in the swamp!

Awesome!!!....Three baby deer...one is in this pic!

Frog habitat...watching frogs on the far bank!!

Looking for frogs!!

Break at the creek!!

OVERVIEW:

A nice day of feeding the fish and seeing nature on this hike....from the fish and birds to chipmunks and frogs...the honeybees and the baby deer a pretty good day. The hike itself though was more a nature walk and wouldn't have really counted for our kids as a true "hike"...still really fun!!