The back way in is good for the soul. Your senses sharpen with each trip. The ever-changing landscape, especially during inclement weather keeps you on your toes and wide eyed. You imagine what it was like in Audubon's day, around 1803. There would have been dense forest then, with birds and wildlife everywhere. The sounds and echoes of the woods must have been Audubon's favorite music.

There is no doubt in my mind there was plenty of inspiration for the budding young artist and Frenchman, just 18 years old. This landscape, country and wildlife was new to him then. He must have felt tremendously alive and free. Taking this walk even today rekindles the boy in me. I will be happy at the discoveries made this day; a place to explore, adventure to be satisfied, and the feeling of being truly alive in these woods.

Walking west from the Audubon Court Apartments on Egypt Road you must cross an open field, part of the Perkiomen Park and once belonging to the farm adjacent to the east bank of the Perkiomen. The old farm must have been bountiful when active, but it's difficult to know from the overgrown yet level field you traverse. The high grass reminds you of wheat growing wild. Following the creek to the farthest point south from the bridge at Egypt Road you reach the location where southern travel is halted at a spot shrouded in trees.

You tread north, to the left up the Mine Run Creek until you come to the trestle of the old miner's bridge. This isn't really a suitable bridge, but two parallel grooved tracks of iron about shoulder width apart lying unsupported and wobbly across the creek except for a solid piling midway. This artifact from the old mining days reveals less of itself in the summer, emerging from lush green between two trees with no apparent starting point. It seems to form out of the ground among the trees to create the path where the sides of the creek reach the level of the tree roots. No other hint in the land tells the story of what facility or mechanism loaded or dropped its load from the carts that rolled across the tracks. For human feet, the tracks are treacherous in rainy or snowy weather and tests ones balance and nerve in crossing.

The easiest way to cross is to shuffle your feet slowly, atop the line of tracks while pressing the sides of your shoes against the outside raised lip of the metal. The mechanics of the effort most resemble a train car, where wheels hug the inside of the rail but sit and roll along the top. As a slow human locomotive, you make your way across the 40-foot span. At its highest point, the bridge is about 8 or 9 foot above the creek bed and the independent bounce of the two iron rails as you move across requires concentration to traverse.

Once safely across you invariably pause and turn to admire your feat. You fondly remember other crossings and friends who accompanied you in the past.

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