Red Pine Lake Hike

A few weeks ago as some of the Iowa family was getting ready to leave and others were arriving, we rounded up a bunch of people and went on a hike. Caleb chose the Red Pine Lake trail, and we did something that I can't remember us ever doing on the Wasatch Front, we went hiking in the afternoon. The weather wasn't too bad and the hike was beautiful, but there was a serious bug problem. There were flies of all sizes that would come up off the trail to land on us, and the higher we got on the fairly steep trail the bigger and more numerous the mosquitoes became. When we would pause with Grandma and Henry for a little break we were attacked by some huge mosquitoes. Gross. Needless to say it dampened our spirits a bit and Grandma and I turned back with two of my boys and a few of the girls while the rest went up higher to have a snowball fight. I spent most of the hike back using Wyatt's hat to shoo the bugs off him while he was in the backpack behind me. I went to bed that night and had a dream about trying to get flies off of me. Aside from this damper on my mental psyche, we had some good times and enjoyed the more beautiful parts of nature.
My four favorite hikers...

A few other people who were good hiking company as well
Crystal, Kelbie and Lauren

These two making hiking look good-
Caden and Rich
Some of the group on one of the bridges along the way. You could really tell it was a wet year for all of the random streams along the trail that usually wouldn't be there at the end of July.A nice view.After the hike the rest of the family came up the canyon to meet us for a cookout.
The cousins hanging out together. It was a fun day that we will look back on and remember the bugs. :-)