Robin Lake

Perfect weather, great setting, and the packs weren't too awfully heavy. But the bugs! We could have been canoeing in the Allagash. Maybe it's this year's heavy, lingering snow that encourages them - and the fact that a whole summer's worth of fresh hikers are all showing up at the same time in mid-August. It wasn't just mosquitoes, since there were a variety of flies, too.

Did I mention the bugs? We hiked in on Friday -- the climb to Tuck is tough, the climb on up to Robin is beautiful, but also tough. We hoped, without much confidence, that going higher might get us out of range, but when we got to Robin, they were waiting for us. The DEET helped, but the little buggers still found gaps in coverage.

Robin Lake was beautiful. It is still partly frozen over and in the morning there was a fresh skim of ice on the rest -- I think it got to mid 40s in the night, but must of been freezing right at water level. We watched the colors shift as the sun set behind us, and then woke to sun coming over ridge to the east, filtered by thousands of little gossamer wings.

We had originally planned on day hiking above Robin on Saturday, but felt a little besieged and eventually decided to hike out. Maybe I'll come back someday and head up higher. I hope this didn't sour D too much on backpacking concept! Sunday is a rest day - if we could only stop scratching!