It's my birthday and that means you all have to do what _I_ want. Normally this works out well.

For my birthday this year, I decided to go on a nice hiking trip. Not too strenuous, we were going to hike over to Upper McCabe lake in the Hoover Wilderness north of Tuolumne meadows, and sit around, fishing, hiking, and chilling.

We got some beautiful weather, and as the 4th of July weekend is pretty much still early season at these elevations, we still had plenty of snow to go around. The hike in was a bit more serious than planned, at least, the snow bash up onto McCabe pass being steeper and rougher than expected. But no big deal, it wasn't for long.

Then we crossed back into Yosemite. And then the problems started. As soon as we crossed down in the Upper McCabe lake basin we started getting the full frontal assault of the 1st Armoured Division of Yosemite Mosquitos.

Everyone was hit hard. Jess's face swelled up, and it caused a lot of grief for a lot of people. Everyone except me that is. I seemed to be almost completely immune from them. It was a beautiful area, and we had a beautiful site to camp in, and we stayed the night.

The next day I graciously suggested that we walk back out, and go somewhere else for the last night of the weekend. Noone objected :)

As soon as we hit the pass again, the mosquitos left. Of course, that side had a lot more people in it. We had a good swim in an icy lake, and then headed north to find a forestry service campsite. With the modern luxuries of picnic tables, toilets and cars parked right by the tents, we enjoyed the birthday supper I'd packed into McCabe lake, tinned peaches, some crumble type gloop, tasty, but not what I'd planned, and a nice bottle of port. My compatriots for the weekend had brought their own birthday surprises too, midnight mikly ways, and a happy birthday banner.

Thanks guys, it was a great weekend.