Thunder Swamp Trail - Painter Swamp to Big Bear Swamp

 The Pennsylvania DCNR website describes the Thunder Swamp Trail as follows:

The Thunder Swamp Trail System provides a network of interconnecting hiking trails built by the Youth Conservation Corps during the 1970's.  The trail is maintained by the Keystone Trails Association and the Pocono Outdoor Club in cooperation with the Delaware State Forest District. Following the trail loops, you can view the Pocono Mountains in detail. You will encounter gradual changes of elevation, experience the dryness of ridgetops, the coolness of the wetlands and streams, and witness an array of native plants and animals. The Thunder Swamp Trail System crosses numerous ridges, valleys, and follows the contours of wetlands. The trail surface is often wet, uneven and rocky. A hiking boot which affords ankle protection and reduces water penetration is recommended. 

We found this trail when the ranger at the district office of the Delaware State Forest gave us a map and brochure.  The entire trail system is 41 miles, but that is far more than we can cover in a day hike.  Looking at the trail map, we picked a lollipop hike at the north end of the trail.  It would take us around Painter Swamp and across two ridges, south of the Stillwater Natural Area, to a loop that circles Big Bear Swamp.  Our proposed hike was 7.5 miles.  While we knew little about it when we decided to do the hike, it provided us with ample rewards!

When we arrived at the trailhead, three other vehicles were already there, but, just as we were ready to start our hike, the others returned to their vehicles.  They had spent three nights on Painter Swamp, camping at one of the three beautiful campsites and spending their days paddling around the swamp, fishing, and admiring the late Fall colors.  We were jealous!

This inspired us to get down the trail, and so we wasted no time:

Within a half mile, we reached Painter Swamp.  Here is the view looking south:

Our path around Painter Swamp was a yellow-blazed trial that took us to a junction with the orange-blazed Thunder Swamp Trail, where David dutifully registered us, to help the state document usage and to protect ourselves in the event of a mishap:

As we worked our way over toward Big Bear Swamp, we passed junctions with Coon Swamp Road, the Stillwater Natural Area, and Big Bear Swamp Trail.  After over 1.5 miles, we reached Little Bushkill Creek.  This stream runs north-to-south through a drainage that includes the Stillwater Natural Area, Silver Lake, Minks Pond and Lake Maskenozha.  Take a look at this video of Little Bushkill Creek where we crossed it on the trail.

The crossing itself was on a bridge -- a very simple one that we wondered might not survive any significant flood.  Kathy snapped a photo of David admiring the stream from the bridge:

On we hiked, and eventually crossed another stream that runs through Big Bear Swamp.  We had to rock-hop to get across the little stream, but no sooner did we get across than we encountered our old friend Burl:

But that was not all!  Soon after, we bumped into Burl, Jr.:

We originally thought we could hike the entire Big Bear Swamp loop, but when we arrived at the start of the loop, it informed us that we would have a full 5 miles to complete it -- which would have resulted in a hike of 11 miles -- three miles more than we bargained for.  So, after consulting the topo map to see which direction might be most interesting, we headed north on the Big Bear Swamp Loop Trail.  We hiked a mile and intended to find a suitable place for lunch.  Don't you know, but, at just about a mile around the loop, we ran into this pretty little campsite which we adopted as our lunch stop:

The campsite is perched on a flat ledge that drops off vertically into the proper area of the Big Bear Swamp.  The drop-off is a huge block of granite that must have been uplifted in one piece from the area below.  After lunch, David ventured down to get a photo of the ledge.  While he got his photo, it does not do justice to the ledge.  Here, you see the corner of a 90-degree corner on the ledge:

We felt re-energized from our lunch and felt ready for our almost-4-mile hike back to the trailhead.  Off we hiked, with a lower sun in the sky and looking back the way from which we had come.  We re-crossed Little Bushkill Creek and noted its colorful character --

-- and then reach a junction with the Stillwater Natural Area, where we crossed Coon Swamp Road again:

Back at Painter Swamp, the sunlight had mellowed with the afternoon, and we had a beautiful view of the water-filled swamp:

The south end of the swamp lake is maintained by a beaver dam that was so well engineered, we speculated that Ms. Beaver must have earned her engineering degree at M.I.T.  Her dam, however, posed an interesting problem for us as hikers.  We were going to have to tip-toe across the dam to continue along the trail around Painter Swamp:

At one point, the trail descended from the beaver dam down to (relatively) dry ground.  We followed it, and found a ladder bridge across the outlet of Painter Swamp.  We carefully stepped across the bridge and continued along the bottom of the swamp:

Here, Kathy is carefully navigating the crest of the beaver dam:

Lo and behold, hiking further along the downstream end of the swamp, we found the beaver's lodge:

We continued west along the bottom of the swamp, then turned north along its western edge.  The soft late afternoon sunlight made for beautiful late Autumn colors:

We neared the top of the swamp and our trailhead, but not before Kathy spotted this beautiful old tree, a survivor of the flooding of the swamp, lending its regal presence to the entire small valley that Painter Swamp occupied:

Even though we had passed along its northern border on our way out the trail, we were surprised how Painter Swamp gave us unexpected rewards at the end of our hike.  We remembered how jealous we had felt of those young people who had camped on the banks of this swamp for three nights and paddled and fished the swamp for three days.  We were even more jealous of their time as we completed our hike.

Perhaps we'll explore other sections of the Thunder Swamp Trail later this year.