4H Overnight to Wilcox Lake

I organized an overnight to Wilcox Lake for the Mayfield Community Guys and Gals 4H club. I took along my 2 nieces and 1 nephew. They are 10, 11 and 13. The 4H'r along was also 10 and was with her mom, the 4H club leader. It's about 5.5 miles from the trailhead to Wilcox Lake. We left the trailhead Thursday morning about 9:45am. We didn't get to Wilcox Lake till after 3pm. It had rained heavily Wednesday and into Thursday morning and didn't actually stop till about 9am. Therefore, the trail was in many place more creek than trail. My niece Emily slipped off a rock in a particularly muddy boggish place and got stuck. Her sneaker came off and we had a heck of a time getting it out. Then, a little way on, she came near to slideing off a board walk over the bog. I thought she'd go into the swamp for sure. About 2 miles in, a normally boggy spot with a pool of water was so high the normal way around it was flooded. We had to tight rope walk along a fallen, moss covered tree to get by. Then, about 2.5 or 3 miles in we came to a large creek flowing downhill. Now normally, a person can cross on the rocks, not so on Thursday. It was in full raging flood. So, they all indicated they wanted to continue so I scouted upstream till I found a place where it looked like we could wade across without getting swept away. Three of the group made it across but when Chelsea started, her pack over balanced and I thought for sure she was going in. Fortunately, she tipped over onto a rock and her pack stuck so she didn't fall in but she did drop her sister's shoe (yes, the one we had to pull out of the bog earlier). I managed to snag it out of the water before it was swept away but it was a close call. All the rest of us got across uneventfully. The rest of the trail was similarly swamped. When we got to Wilcox Lake the leanto was all ours and a nice breeze was blowing off of the lake. The kids put on swim suits and got wet and we roasted hot dogs and made s'mores. We left about 8:40am on Friday morning. The trail had drained off in most of the spots we had trouble with on Thursday. We still had to wade across the big creek but the water was lower so we could cross at the normal trail point. My husband met us on the trail shortly thereafter and we got back to the trailhead about 12:15. A much better pace than the day before. The kids were awsome and helpful to each other when it really counted, offering a hand across muddy spots and crossing streams. They were really troopers and get a big round of applause from me.