A Forced March on the Howlock Trail at Diamond Lake

(+5 insets) (please view large to see extra beauty of this trail!) (sorry for the blown out bits on some pictures!) (oh, and get a cup of coffee...it's STORY TIME! :D)

Even before Steve and I made reservations to stay at Diamond Lake, we were told that there was one serious problem with it:

This place is absolutely notorious for MOSQUITOES.

In fact, we met a State Park camp host earlier on our trip who mentioned that the mosquitoes were so bad that when she stopped for a visit a couple of weeks previously, she and her friend were swarmed by blood-suckers before they even got out of the car. They actually had to abort their visit because they couldn't get away from them.

Steve and I couldn't believe this lady wasn't exaggerating, and even though we read a lot of comments from other visitors who stated the same thing, we didn't want to believe them. Confound it all, we wanted to go to Diamond Lake! A few mosquitoes were nothing to be scared away from, right?

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!! <--- That's a maniacal laugh, one followed by many more…oh, so many more!

It turns out that this camp host was 100% accurate. When we pulled into the campground, we stopped at the registration booth to check in. Steve was greeted by mosquitoes before he even entered the building. When we got to our site, we were soon surrounded by bunches of 1"+ blood-thirsty monsters which quickly drove us into the trailer. We couldn't stop repeating, "OH MY GAWD!! THE MOSQUITOES!!!" We sprayed ourselves with mosquito repellant and to our relief, that kept them at bay. Sort of.

Did you know that mosquitoes are perfectly happy to push their sharp proboscis' through your SHIRTS and into your skin? Wherever we didn't have repellent, they'd land and attempt this sneaky method to separate us from our life's liquid.

If they couldn't land on us, they would fly around us in boisterous clouds. We noticed to our disgust that they would land on us anyway staying as long as they could before being repelled by the noxious fumes, ever-seeking a tasty meal.

Somehow they knew to swarm around the door to our trailer so we'd have to dive in and out as fast as possible to keep them outside. We were unsuccessful. At least they were large enough that we could see them easily. They were also slow-moving, which helped too. Still, we began to accumulate bug bites, especially Steve. For some reason he attracts mosquitoes much more than I do and he was extremely unhappy about his popularity and the resulting bites. One morning he woke up to feel lots of itchy spots on his back. I counted them. TWELVE BITES in one small area, the poor guy!!

Thank goodness for our method of treating itchy bites: all it takes is a wet paper towel that's been heated up in the microwave, and then pressed on the bite. This burns out the histamines that cause the itching and stops it completely for several hours or more. If only we'd known this simple trick as kids! For multiple bites, a hot shower does the trick. Steve had plenty of those during our stay--I mostly got bites on my hands so could just run them under the hot water for relief.

I am usually very tolerant of mosquitoes. "WHATEVER" is my usual response, but these guys were relentless! They follow you all over the place! When I went down to the creek to take pictures, it was just incredible and I was finally driven back to the RV to get away from them. Insanity!!

On our last day before heading home, we decided to go on a hike. The day before we'd ridden our bikes around the lake and it was MARVELOUS! What a glorious ride! It's true that the mosquitoes would begin to swarm if we stopped for too long but once we got going we quickly left them behind. We figured a hike would be the same situation.

We forgot some extremely important logic: our bike ride was just an hour and change, along with the fact that riding our bikes quickly left the mosquitoes behind. But hiking…not the same thing. Not at all.

There was a lovely hike we discovered that led from a trailhead just a few miles from our campground and meandered up onto the side of Mt. Thielson for an out and back of about 10 miles. The pictures were wonderful and we were really excited as we set out that morning, our backpacks readied with bottles of water and a wonderful lunch. I even brought my Sony so I could take pictures on the way back. Little did I know I'd never take it out…

Have you ever participated in a relay race? Run with a baton, pass it to the next person, they take off and so it continues. Now, picture a pack of mosquitoes. Imagine Steve and me, walking along a trail with a cloud of mosquitos following along behind us. As we walk along the path, the first mosquitoes eventually get tired and slow down. BUT WAIT! What's that I see? Why, there are NEW mosquitoes standing by to take up the chase! HOORAY!!! *glower*

The hike started off well enough--what a BEAUTIFUL TRAIL!!! Dappled shadows captivated me, flowers were here and there to delight me, and there was even a beautiful creek to enjoy.

We stopped to drink some water. Within seconds we were surrounded by a cloud of mosquitoes, so we took off again as soon as we'd had a few sips. I stopped to look at the creek below and…omg…THE MOSQUITOES!! "KEEP WALKING!!" Steve cried, and off we went. Anytime we stopped walking, we were soon surrounded. What's more, where sweat had washed away repellent, the mosquitoes landed in droves. Frantic slaps would often resemble blood baths. I usually keep calm about bugs flying around but they were landing on my face and hands, my arms and everywhere else that didn't have a lot of repellent. I simply couldn't believe this assault! Steve got the extra strong lotion and I slathered it on everywhere. STILL THEY SWARMED! We took off at a fast walk and finally left them behind.

We were not quite to the half-way point, which was where we would stop and have our lunch. We were both very hungry after several hours of hiking and we needed a break--we hadn't paused for more than 30 seconds since we began this walk. But just as we were about to sit and enjoy a much-needed rest and break, the mosquitoes caught up to us again. Suddenly we realized our biggest mistake:

The mosquitoes would not let us rest. They would not let us eat our lunch. They would not stop. Ever…until we were lifeless, dried husks. All kidding aside, we were hungry and tired and never planned on a non-stop hike without a break. And yet, that was exactly what was forced on us.

No way would we get to the turn-around spot--we turned around right then and began heading back. Each of us had a bag of mixed nuts to eat as we walked, and we drank water on the move as well. I was in front and Steve told me that there were dozens of mosquitoes following along behind me, and undoubtedly they were behind him too. Neither one of us had ever encountered such a situation in our lives.

Nor had we walked so long without a break. In the end we would walk about 5 hours without stopping. We were so exhausted that we had to be very careful about where we placed our feet. It's times when you're tired that you are most likely to hurt yourself and we both knew it. We stumbled plenty but did our best to keep our heads on straight. Thankfully we got back to the truck without a problem but both of us were dead in the water when we got back to the RV. It's funny--we would have been able to hike for many more hours, many more miles, had we only been able to stop for even a moment.

It's too bad about the mosquitoes because the hike was just lovely…the pictures I'm sharing today aren't the best because they're from my phone and suffer from overexposure. But you get the idea.

Bottom line: if someone warns you about mosquitoes, LISTEN TO THEM!! :D We've since learned that the mosquitoes leave in late August and don't come back until spring, and that's why we didn't notice them the last time we'd visited--it had been the end of September! We'd love to come back to this beautiful place but we'll never return during mosquito season!!

Pam, have you ever had to deal with a mosquito invasion like this? I pity anyone who had had to deal with relentless clouds of these blood-sucking monsters!! *tosses a mosquito net your way along with a hug*

Explored on 7/10/19; highest placement, #10.