My wife and I walked around Sweezy Pond in Cranberry Bog County Preserve in the winter months.  The parking area for this hike is on County Road 63, one mile south of the Riverhead Circle.  It is on the west side of the road, opposite where Lakeside Drive intersects CR 63.  In August, I walked this trail and later found myself covered with itchy welts. When I sent samples of the offending critters to Vector Control to be analyzed, I was told that the small mites I associated with the welts were larval Lone Star Ticks. This is one of the reasons I enjoy walking in the winter; most of the obnoxious critters are gone.  However, on this hike even though the temperature was 40 degrees, my wife managed to pick up one dog tick.  Laurie knows to wear light colored slacks when she walks in the woods, so I saw the tick immediately, picked it off, and flicked it away.

We finished walking the trail in 20 minutes and then decided to do some exploring.  Referring to Larry Paul’s Pine Barrens Map (to purchase map call 631-360-0753) we found a yellow DEC trail that starts on the east side of CR 63, opposite the Preserve.  We walked along the road, north 100 yards from the parking area, and saw a telephone pole with several signs and a faded round yellow plastic blaze.  We followed this trail a short distance to a DEC red loop trail, and followed that south into wetlands and then up some exhilarating rises.  We were able to see Wildwood Lake through the branches of the leafless trees.  This red loop is roughly rectangular in shape.  If we had followed the loop around to the east 1 mile and then followed the yellow access trail south 1 mile, we would have reached the Paumanok Path and the yellow access trail, both will take you to the Sarnoff CR 104 parking area.  The Paumanok Path is now the direct route, and the yellow blazed kettlehole trail the more scenic.