Beauty, without bugs: A pleasantly mosquito-free visit to Van Patten Lake

Jun. 30—I trust mosquitoes.

I don't like mosquitoes, but I trust them.

The bloodsucking bugs, though capable of driving a person to the verge of temporary madness with their incessant insectile buzzing and biting, are nothing if not reliable.

This is particularly so in the alpine country of Northeastern Oregon.

Along about the time the snow is either gone or down to grainy drifts the approximate consistency of sno-cones — generally from late June through early August, depending on the elevation — the arrival of the mosquitoes is as predictable as the blooming of the lupine and the paintbrush.

I have come to accept swatting and itching as the physical toll, along with the lung-straining challenge of steep terrain, required for entry to such spectacular places.

As such, I especially treasure trips when my worries about mosquitoes turn out to be unfounded.

So it was on June 26 when my family trudged up the steep road, and then the even steeper trail, that lead to Van Patten Lake in the Elkhorns.

Notwithstanding those punishing grades, Van Patten is much more accessible than most lakes in the range.

The round trip is a mere three miles, and the trailhead is just off the paved highway about three miles below, and east of, Anthony Lakes.

Yet although Van Patten is easier to get to than, say, Rock Creek, Summit and Red Mountain lakes, it yields nothing, in general grandeur, to those pools, which require either a torturous drive and a longer walk.

Or both, in the case of Rock Creek Lake.

In common with many lakes in the Elkhorns and Wallowas, Van Patten occupies a basin gouged in the bedrock (granitic, in this case) by an Ice Age glacier. At about 16.5 acres, Van Patten is the fifth-largest lake in the Elkhorns, behind Rock Creek (24 acres), Anthony (22), Pine Creek Reservoir (18) and Summit (17).

Van Patten isn't always quite so big, however. Some of its flow is diverted each summer for irrigation, and by late summer the lake is noticeably shrunken.

But in late June it's about as full as it gets.

And about as deeply blue as water can be — that inimitable shade peculiar to cold, crystalline lakes at high elevations.

My experience with mosquitoes at Van Patten is a long one, marked by much muttering (occasionally profane) and frenzied flailing of arms more commonly associated with seizures.

My wife, Lisa, recalls, with the sort of hyper acuity reserved for especially unpleasant episodes, a visit many years ago when the bugs seemed destined to craft nests in her hair.

It's a buggy place.

I had, therefore, forgotten to put repellent in my pack.

Lisa, fortunately, had not.

I wasn't certain that mosquitoes would be swarming.

My previous encounters, so far as I can remember, all happened in July, the peak month, generally speaking, for alpine mosquitoes.

There was no shortage of insects, to be sure, as we climbed toward the lake. And each time a tiny dark speck whizzed past my face I winced slightly, anticipating the telltale dental drill whining.

It did not happen.

The DEET-enriched spray can remained in Lisa's pack.

We hiked a short way along the northern shore of the lake, which is shaped rather like a lance, much longer than it is across.

The ice was nearly gone but there was a curious bridge of white spanning the lake near its west end. I piloted our drone on a brief flight, and it captured some intriguing photos of the ice bridge, which was riddled on its edges with fissures that reminded me of a river delta.

It was a brilliant day, and pleasantly warm even at 7,400 feet. There was a breeze, though, and as always seems to be the case in such elevated places, it was refreshing, nothing like the dog's breath of a summer wind on a scorching day in the valley.

Our kids, Max and Olivia, waded in the frigid water. I knelt on a granitic boulder and splashed a couple palmfuls of water on my forehead. My hands went numb almost immediately.

Lisa and I reminisced about our previous, infested, hikes to Van Patten. We agreed that although today was ideal, it almost certainly would be quite a different experience in a week or two.

We had no doubt that even in that sylvan setting, among the contorted whitebark pines and slender subalpine firs and the little rock gardens that landscapers strive to mimic, the bugs lurked, languid in the moisture trickling from the drifts.

Waiting to be roused from their long dormancy beneath the snow, ready to wreak havoc in their insatiable pursuit of blood.

Jayson Jacoby is editor of the Baker City Herald.