Category: Decommends

I thought it would be fun to go backpacking for a weekend.  I’ve always wanted to check out the Land Between the Lakes (LBL), so I started planning a trip over the long Fourth of July weekend to backpack at LBL. The plan was to hike in, camp, hike, camp, hike out.

We stuck to the plan and all things considered walked away with a few good memories.  Saw tiny frogs, had a nice camp site, and toured the bison reserve.

But we had our share of difficulties. The insane amount of spider webs strung across the hiking path was fixed easy enough with a waving stick held by the leader.  Our spur of the moment decision, early our first full hiking day, to add a loop to our planned hike made the end of the day really tiring but made us more determined. The strong thunderstorm late in the evening the second night, that lasted most of the night, didn’t dampen our spirits much.  But the mosquitoes, ticks and chiggers tried us mightily and nearly broke us.

We stopped about a mile into our hike the first night and discovered ticks on our socks and legs.  This led to a tick check each and every water break.  Poor Pablo had to of been tired of us poking and pulling at him.  He was attracting TONS of ticks. The mosquitoes were just a general annoyance.  But the chiggers were sly, we didn’t realize their presence until the second night camping.  They might be little but they cause a BIG itch.

So Peteifer and Pablo decommend the LBL in July for backpacking.  Stick with the water adventures friends, your skin will thank you.