North Erickson - July 24, 2008

We went up to Erickson Basin again, only this time I decided to take both of my older boys (8 and 6). I thought we'd give them a chance to carry all of their own gear, and they did very well. The only tears on the trail were from not getting to walk side by side and such nonsense, which I was rather happy about. There were no runny noses over difficulty.

The weather was charming. My brother-in-law Kevin went with us. This was his first ever backpacking trip, although he is an experienced camper / outdoorsman. We camped at North Erickson this time on the north-east side of the lake. There was a rather nice little setup there with a firepit, so we took it.

We stopped briefly at East Shingle Creek Lake again for a breather. My youngest boy had to go number two and had never done the "dig a hole" thing, so that became a training moment.

The fishing was remarkable. We caught several brook trout that tasted rather delicious. As seen from the pictures, the quiet morning scenery is unmatchable. The one challenge with the trip was mosquitos and flies; they were the worst in this particular area at this particular time of year than I have ever seen them before. Despite repellant and other precautions, we counted 23 bites on the back of my younger boy, and that did not include his arms, legs, and face. The interesting thing is that he didn't really say anything about it until we got home.

Once again, taking youngsters into the Uintas is a challenge. There is already so much to do on top of keeping them alive, but these two guys handled themselves very well. I feel confident that with practice they'll become the kind of experienced outdoorsmen that can handle themselves. I realize that I can't expect to wait until they are adults to introduce them to the outdoors. I sense that the results will be much better if I help them learn to love, appreciate, and respect the outdoors while they are young.