Boom! Headshot! - 1940.7 mi to Campo

Wow. Crazy day today. It started out early at Camelot Lake. We managed to hit the trail by aroiund 8:15am. We soon began our trip through the first of several large lake filled basins. The bugs were bad. No, bad isn't a strong enough word. The bugs were incessent. We could barely take breaks. They drove us to hike fairly rapidly too. By 12:45pm we pulled into Dumbell Lake. Already having craked out 11.8 mi, we took a long lunch. 2 1/2 hours long in fact.

Dumbell Lake was a bug free paradise. An oasis in a desert of bugs. I wanted to stay there all day long. We finally left the lake around 3:15pm. The bugs came back and with a vengenance.

Ballcaps are great for the most part. Today I had mine pulled down quite low over my forehead to ward off bugs. They keep the sun off great too. One bad thing is that they kill your vertical peripheral vision. So...

There we were, Arij in the lead, steaming uphill to keep ahead of the bugs. Head down to best keep the bugs from flying into my eyes/nose/mouth, I failed to see a log across the trail, suspended about 6' 2" off the ground. Unfortunately, I stand around 6' 4"... CRACK!!

Ouch that hurt. I head-butted that log at full speed. It was a draw, I'd have to say. It also opened up a good 3" long gash on my skull. So, for the next 45 minutes or so, Arij bandaged my skull. Glad we're both EMTs.

After than little episode, we continued our march into the heart of mosquito land. At one point, I took off my pack, set it down, and observed a swarm of probably 50+ mosquitoesland on my warm pack. I didn't need to snack today, enought were continually flying into my nose and mounth, I'm sure I was getting plenty of protein.

Anyhow, the bugs became so unbearable (even the DEET was barely holding them at bay) that we half walked, half ran the next 10 or so miles. Sadly, our camp here at Stormy Lake is horrifically infested.

Totally out of gas today. Gonna go sleep now. 23.5 miles - not bad, all things considered.