It's easy for hikers and bikers on the Perkiomen Trail to breeze right by the elegant historic home of former Gov. Samuel Pennypacker without knowing it's there.

After all, someone has to point out that it's just off the trail.

Now, though, someone does.

A new tour created by Montgomery County planners and trail buffs takes visitors through 12 points of interest along a 10-mile leg of the path - by cell phone.

Visitors dial a phone number and punch in 1 through 12 to listen to corresponding recordings about history, personalities, and wildlife.

Organizers lacked the funds to install small signs with number markers along the trail, so visitors must approximate the general location of each point of interest. A map is available through the county's website, http://www2.montcopa.org.

Cell-phone tours, though rare, are not unprecedented. Valley Forge National Historical Park has them in English and Spanish. Laurel Hill Cemetery started a cell-phone tour in 2009, highlighting the oldest section of the burial ground.

Along the Perkiomen Trail, the Pennypacker site is 11. Callers hear about the state's 23d governor and then are directed to the home along Route 73 where the family's life in 1906 is replicated, down to the paint box used by daughter Josephina.

Assistant site administrator Linda Callegari sees the cell-phone tour as a bridge between the county's recreational and historic offerings.

"We're excited about the possibility that people will discover us," she said. "They'll start out taking a bike ride, but they'll end up having an historical experience."

Joan Aichele, membership chairwoman for the Delaware Valley Chapter of the Appalachian Mountain Club, said she thought the cell-phone tour would be a hit with club members.

The club finds that families are hitting the trails in increasing numbers, and that is changing the nature of the leisure-time industry, she said.

"Kids just don't want to go out and do nothing. You've got to entertain them," Aichele said.

The tour material is varied. Segments tell how Green Lane Reservoir was formed; how ice chunks from the Perkiomen Creek were once shipped to Philadelphia's restaurants; about the habits of the barred owl and black vulture; and about the lives of the Leni-Lenape.

The cell-phone tour debuted July 18, and has attracted at least 50 callers so far, says Rich Wood, regional trails manager for Montgomery County. It was the brainchild of Kathleen Lambert, a county intern who is a graduate student at Temple University.

For the last few years, planners focused on routing and creating an asphalt or gravel floor for the trail, which stretches between Oaks and Green Lane. This summer, attention turned to signs and information about the trail, and that is where the cell-phone tour came in, Wood said.

Michael Stokes, the county's assistant planning director, likes the cell-phone tour because it provides instant information, without paper brochures or signs to clutter up the trail.

"It is simple and can be tailored to the user's need. Everyone using the trail has their cell phone with them; why not use it to find out something new?" Stokes said.

Aichele, who was scoping out the Perkiomen Trail near Schwenksville one day last week, in search of bike hikes for the club's 5,000 local members, predicted club members would be calling to hear the tour.

"A lot of our members love history," she said, "and they're always looking for family adventures. That's some of the best biking and hikes, when there is history involved."

Wood says the nonprofit group Rails to Trails provided the $5,000 to start the phone tour. It is free to callers. The county took pains not to spend lots of public money to implement the idea.

The tour covers only the stretch of the Perkiomen Trail from Rahns to Green Lane, although the trail extends southward to Oaks for another eight miles.

Plans are being made to extend the cell-phone tour to encompass the lower leg. Wood says he is considering stops at an old cider mill, Collegeville, and a segment on the ecology of the Perkiomen Creek.

He'd also like to see future tours on iPhones, with live-stream pictures.

"The options on an iPhone are really endless," Wood says. "We're excited about the opportunity to really enjoy this experience."

 

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Contact staff writer Bonnie L. Cook at 610-313-8232 or This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .