Lake Caroline — Tuesday, Jul. 24, 2018

Central Cascades > Leavenworth Area

We started from Eightmile Lake as we had permits to stay on the eightmile/caroline lake zone. The hike is 95% in direct sunlight, there is no shade other than a small patch of forest right before the lake. It was a beautiful hike on the ridge of a mountain and it was beautiful to see all the peaks in the distance. We got to the lake in 2 hours from Eightmile Lake, we stopped to take a picture and the bugs came out of NOWHERE. Biting flies and misquotes were swarming with seconds and at one point my friend and I had about 75-100 bugs around us. Trying to stop for water or food was almost impossible. We turned around as we underestimated the heat and were hoping to get to windy pass but knew it would be a tough hike. We ran out of lake to escape from the bugs and made it back down to camp by 2:00.