In how many places in Lancaster County can you find more than 1,000 mating toads, an old lime kiln, caves, gobbling turkeys, veins of intersecting streams and deep-hollow solitude — all within a minute or two walk from a road?

Such a place exists in relative obscurity on about 130 acres of up and down wooded glens near the Safe Harbor Dam.

Owned by Safe Harbor Water Power Corp., the woodland, once used — and abused — to extract material to build the 77-year-old Safe Harbor Dam, has long been open to the public for exploring and hunting.

But it's not advertised and many have no clue it exists in the River Hills beside the Susquehanna River near Conestoga.

John K. Johnson has been crawling through the ravines and wading among its mucky wetlands for 43 years. His brother, Jim Johnson, was a science teacher and he started dragging his 10-year-old kid brother along on class outings and projects.

Their destination was various swampy spots formed when the hillsides were gouged of rock and crushed to make cement to build the dam. Some 2.3 million cubic yards of rock was excavated over several years.

A few of the holes have filled with shallow water and have become teeming wetlands.

About a month ago, John Johnson, a Manor Township resident, walked back to the swamp to scoop up some duckweed to transplant in his backyard pond. What he found was every inch of the water teeming with mating toads. The roar of the toads and spring peepers was deafening. I accompanied Johnson a week later to the pond, but by then the bottom was covered with thousands of tadpoles and newts.

We parked on River Road and walked along an abandoned concrete road that was once used to truck rock out of the quarries. On a steep hillside looming over a stream are strange concrete walls and what look like giant dragon's teeth. Those are the support structures for old rock crushers used to make cement, Ron Wagner, Safe Harbor's properties superintendent, tells me.

A short line railroad system ran along the main stream at the bottom of the ravine to transport the crushed rock. During the dam's construction, some of the 5,000-man workforce lived in temporary shelters in the ravines.

Caves found in the the hillsides are actually old root cellars.

There are well defined trails throughout the various ravines. Unfortunately, illegal all-terrain vehicles are carving outlaw trails through the streams and up and over steep hillsides.

Wagner says the utility tries to chase them out but they often elude managers.

There are several access points to the ravines. The abandoned rail bed can be followed from River Road where the stream crosses the road, across from the entrance to Safe Harbor Dam.

Round the corner and heading uphill (east) on River Road, there are several entrance points with cables across them. Or, turn left onto Spring Run Road and go a short distance to where a stream crosses. A trail heads downstream into the heart of the property. Be forewarned that Spring Run Road becomes unpaved and rutted after this point.

Yet another way to reach the property is to park at the tennis courts off River Road at the Safe Harbor Arboretum. Walk uphill on what used to be the main street of the Safe Harbor ghose town.

You'll see the ironmaster's house and foundations of houses lived in by mostly immigrant workers at the Safe Harbor Iron Works.

Past the old site of St. Mary's Immaculate Conception Catholic Church and cemetery, you can desecend over the hill into the wooded ravines.

Nature has mostly done a good job of cloaking the works of its invaders from yesteryear. Dutchman's breeches and other wildflowers abound. The hooves of deer are imprinted in the soft stream banks.

"This would be a great preserve. There's so much potential here," Ralph Goodno, executive director of the Lancaster County Conservancy, is saying as we trace one of the trails on a recent visit.

Goodno is hopeful the property will indeed become a public preserve although it's not as certain as it looked last summer.

After a bidding process, Lancaster Home Builders took out an option to buy the property.

Under the proposal, some 120 single-family homes would be built on 22 acres around the historic Safe Harbor Village. The developer was to give more than 150 acres to the conservancy.

But "the deal is at a standstill," reports Wagner. "Site issues" are blamed. One was arsenic found in soil, but Wagner says experts have determined it is natural arsenic and does not pose a health hazard.

Safe Harbor officials and the developer are working to iron out the problems over the next several weeks. If they aren't, other interested bidders might be approached.

But in good news for nature lovers, Safe Harbor has said it wants to see as much of the land preserved as possible.


MAP: Safe Harbor public land