Normally I’d have a few more photos from a hike, but yesterday I came back with eight. And twice as many mosquito bites. And as many black fly bites.
I forgot my bug spray in a hiking season known for particularly bad bugs.
Hiking from the car to around the lake I used my bandanna as a horse tail, twitching and flicking, as incessant as the mosquitoes. We cut to the path that lead to the Pacific Coat Trail, our ultimate goal Buck Peak several miles out. (Lost Lake is a very popular camping and day use area and we wanted to get away from the crowds.)
But it got to be too much and we turned back to go to the small store in the populated campground. Luckily we starting talking to a trio of lake loopers who traded us Jungle Juice for a plastic trash bag and we set back up the trail. But even with the repellent the mosquitoes swarmed our faces and it was just too aggravating to go on. Not to mention that Jungle Juice doesn’t keep black flies from biting.
Even my hiking buddy was bothered by the mosquitoes, and she is usually nonplussed by them. (I am a magnet.)
It was so aggravating I just about cried in frustration at one point. I saw a cool frog (may he gorge himself silly) and couldn’t even stop long enough to take a picture or even admire him as much as I wanted to. Thankfully a breeze came up when we got back to the lakeside and were able to sit for lunch and admire fish jumping out of the water (may they gorge themselves silly).
Ugh.
It’s humiliating to be stopped by bugs.
We got six miles of hiking in. Yet I had to concentrate on what a gorgeous place this is unless there was a breeze.
Indian Heaven is out. That place is always buggy, so I can’t imagine what it will be like this year. Egads.
PS. I moved the bug spray sitting on my kitchen counter directly into my back pack.


















