We headed out about 12:00 with the dogs loaded, and packs strapped in the jeep. Our destination, just outside of Renova.
It was going to be a beautiful warm day so we rolled up the back and took the side windows off of the Jeep; it is the dogs’ favorite way to ride. Since it was the first day of Spring Gobbler John did not want to be in the woods until after noon time.
We wanted to do the small loop trail around the Cranberry Swamp which is on the lower end of the East or North loop. It appeared to be level and not too long.
It took us a bit to find our way to our parking area, but eventually we did and the dogs were glad to be out of the jeep after more than an hour and a half. John had done trail maintenance in the area we were hiking so he was looking forward to reliving some old memories with me. He had some waypoints marked on the map and some additional trail markings, or so we thought, that he couldn’t remember anything about so we were also going to try to establish if these were good camping spots or something else. 
We weren’t more than 100 yards into the walk when the dogs found some standing water. Cooper found his favorite thing too, black, tar-like, stinking mud. Before I could shout a command to him, he laid down in it and wallowed around. AAAHHH!! He just had a bath 2 weeks ago!! John found a deeper puddle with clear water and had him run through it, for all the good it did.
The trail we started out on was blazed yellow. If you look at the map above it is the northern most starting point of the purple trail. John said that the CKT was orange. After some looking around and comparing to the map, we thought that this must just be a short trail that lead to the CKT and then we would take the Cranberry Swamp loop.
From looking at our tracks on the map the little tag at the top of the loop was the short walk to the Cranberry Swamp trail. We walked south down the east side of the loop. When we got to the proverbial "fork in the road" (which you can see clearly on the map), the orange trail went one way, and the yellow trail went the other. We stopped to read the map, trying to decide which way to go. The dogs found a nice stream to play in and cool off, which thankfully washed much of the mud off of Cooper. 
Here is where the statement "we are not as smart as we’d like to be sometimes" comes in. Rather than continuing on the yellow trail, which would have taken us around the Cranberry Swamp (our original destination) we went with the orange blazed trail. That is the "tail" you see on the map going further south. Now we have hiked MANY trails that have off shoot loops, and for the most part these trails are marked with different colors from the main trail. Apparently we "forgot" that, or couldn’t put two and two together.
This led us to a VERY steep up hill. So much for our easy walk. All my working out at Curves paid off, though. I reached a flat spot on the up hill and stopped to rest. When John caught up he said that he didn’t know why I was running up this hill. I didn’t think I was running. Now he knows how the rest of us have felt for years, when Sophie had to be on lead and pulled him up a hill. Now he has to do it on his own.
In the end we managed to make it to the top without any major mishaps. At the top, John started to recognize where he was, as we had reached the spot where he had done trail maintenance in the past. A little farther up the trail, we came to the pipeline and recognized it as the "other trail" that John had marked on the map. The waypoints turned out to be DCNR gates that he was responsible for opening. We could see for miles to the East.
There wasn’t anywhere to stop and hang a hammock as, you can see from the picture above, it was pretty thick with laurel.
This area experienced a wild fire, because of carelessness I understand, and most of the trees were gone. John said that there was a hollow with a stream on the other side of the clearing but it would be another down hill and then up hill on return. I was game for it so off we went.
The down hill was gentle enough. At the bottom we found a camp site right next to the stream with a perfect place to hang the hammocks and spend the afternoon. Cooper and Sophie liked this spot as they had easy access to the stream near by. We hung our for a couple of hours, I read "my book" (my new, highly portable, Kindle) and John napped. The near by babbling brook was very soothing, though John was afraid that if he slept by it all night he would have to pee a lot.
Supper time finally. I was anxious to try some of our new meals that we ordered from Campmore. I fed the dogs while John got our supper going.
We were having Thai Satay Beef and Apple Cobbler for desert. There was a bit more prep in both of these than other freeze dried meals we have been getting. Rather than just adding boiling water and eating 10 minutes later, there was a lot of adding boiling
water, waiting, adding other ingredients, cooking some more….
The Thai beef meal was delicious, and the larger 12 oz. size fed both of us fully. The apple cobbler was OK. If we would have had a frying pan for our JetBoil I think it would have cooked the dough part better. I can see a shopping trip will be in order soon.
We hung out a bit more to let our stomachs settle and then we packed up preparing to make our way back home. It was about 5:30 or so and we figured it would take us 1 1/2 to 2 hours to walk back out to the car. On our way back we came again to the fork in the road and decided that the yellow blazed trail was the Cranberry Swamp trail that we should have taken in the first place. So we took the West side of the loop back to the Jeep. On this side of the loop we were actually able to get a good look at the swamp.
I would have liked to spent more time investigating but we were running out of daylight; the sun would be setting at 8pm. I said to John I would like to come back here some time.
We hadn’t run into a single soul, we basically had the woods to ourselves, which I thought was quite nice, though we talked about how this would not be for many people. In fact the more we drove around the area, the more I noticed how few people there really were. John said that there isn’t a whole lot in this area other than hunting, snowmobiling and wilderness to draw people to the area. For us, that is the perfect draw. I expect to spend a lot more time in Sproul State forest this year.
On our way out, it was my turn to drive and John watched for wild life. One deer crossed our path. The dogs didn’t see it as they were looking out the back of the Jeep, but as we passed by Sophie started whimpering and Cooper got excited, so we knew they smelled it at least.
A bit farther up the road I saw something in the road and slowed down turns out it was a female grouse sitting in the middle of the road. As we pulled up it moved off to the side and John was able to get a picture. I’m amazed at how well her markings blend into the forest floor.
Our total walk ended up being a little over 5 miles.
Not bad for our first outing, especially considering the next morning, no one seemed overly stiff.
On the Pipe line clearing
It’s great to see you guys and Sophie and Cooper again! I miss sitting for them.