Your Mosquito's From Hell Trip

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rlown
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Re: Your Mosquito's From Hell Trip

Post by rlown »

there is a cure for not having a bad skeeter experience.. It's called September.
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Re: Your Mosquito's From Hell Trip

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And the band plays on ...........................
I am not in a hurry, so don't be hasty.
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Re: Your Mosquito's From Hell Trip

Post by cahiker »

rlown wrote:there is a cure for not having a bad skeeter experience.. It's called September.
I have two memorable 4th of July trips. The first was in the Tablelands area of SEKI in the early 90s. We didn't bring a tent so the day would begin with being woken up by the whine of mosquitoes buzzing around our heads. That was followed by breakfast where we never stopped moving so they couldn't land. It was very hot so there was a bit of relief around mid day, but they were back in full force by mid-afternoon. Most of our group hiked out a day early, but my boyfriend somehow convinced me to stay. I ended up with about 100 bites and a healthy fear of July 4th in the mountains.

In 2009 I had the week of July 4th off from work (forced vacation) so we ended up heading to the 1000 Island/Waugh/Clark/Shadow Lakes area. Wisdom comes with age (sometimes) so we had a tent with lots of netting, baggy long sleeve shirts, headnets, deet and benadryl. There weren't any mosquitoes as we climbed up from the Rush Creek trailhead, but they appeared just past Agnew Lake and aggressively pursued us the rest of the week. Our clothing, headnets and deet provided protection while hiking, and we only stopped to rest in areas with a strong breeze. As soon as we got into camp I dove into the tent, and spent the afternoons trying to photograph the clouds of mosquitoes hovering around the tent and enjoying the scenery, emerging only after dark. I got some bites, but was able to go right to sleep and forget about the itching since I took a benadryl before bedtime. We had a great time despite all the bloodsuckers and managed to escape relatively unscathed.

I still think July 4th is better spent skiing, saving backpacking for August and September.
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Re: Your Mosquito's From Hell Trip

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Just below the Treasure Lakes out of South Lake there is a shady meadow where Bishop Creek meanders back and forth. It's a super fun place to fish but it is far and away the buggiest place I have ever encountered in the Sierra. I had trouble seeing my fly floating down the stream because of the cloud of mosquitos and flies buzzing around my head. The flies were unbelievable, even worse than the mosquitos. My buddy and I could endure it only long enough to wash the skunk off and then we ran for our lives. I've been there several times but only one time was it that bad. And Yeah, I can confirm that the Tablelands in early July is torture.
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Re: Your Mosquito's From Hell Trip

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Not sure this was the worst mosquitoes, but it was the "straw" that broke the camel's back. I had been hiking higher and higher after getting into bad mosquitoes around Mineral King and then in Deadman Canyon. So my third trip I aimed higher yet - hoped to go into Marion Lake via High Route. First night I camped at Grouse Lake and all was OK. Second day I went over Goat Crest and hit mosquitoes in Glacier Lakes. By the time I got to States Lake, they were SO bad that I set up the tent, went inside and spent the next half hour killing skeets that got inside. The netting was so thick with skeets on the outside, that I actually peed into my cooking pot inside the tent because I was not going to go outside! I ate trail food for dinner. I had 8 days food, but I bailed. I left next morning before dawn and hiked continously to the ridge above Volcanic Lakes to get into the wind, where there was a bit of relief. Next day I walked out, never stopping for a rest. I went home and stayed out of the mountains for the next three weeks!
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Re: Your Mosquito's From Hell Trip

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WD, what year was that? What month?

Mike
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Re: Your Mosquito's From Hell Trip

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July 13-16 2006.
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David and Karen
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Re: Your Mosquito's From Hell Trip

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I was going through old trip reports and stumbled across this gem from Jasper National Park in Alberta - July 2009. If you like parody songs then this report is for you - play the video and read along with the alternative lyrics
Karen's Flickr site: http://www.flickr.com/photos/48937858@N07/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Zenfolio site: http://weekendswithmarmots.zenfolio.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
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Re: Your Mosquito's From Hell Trip

Post by giantbrookie »

My two worst trips of all time for mosquitoes are not in places that one might normally associated with the winged hordes, but the second of these trips has very seriously influenced my backpacking strategy. The first really horrible mosquito trip I took was to climb Olancha Peak of all things in July of 1975. I was with my younger brother and my dad. For about two years before that, my bro and I would keep tallies on the number of mosquitoes killed in one day. These needed to be confirmed kills---the smear had to be on the hand or whatever the hand smacked. Up until the Olancha trip, the family record was held by me--a day of 200+ kills near Saddlebag. This all went out the window on the Olancha trip. This came as a total shock. As you know, this is not a very wet place. As we hiked up from the east, we had no idea of what awaited us. We crested out, and there is this benign-looking meadow with some cows grazing in it. Then we dropped our packs at our camp (upslope from said meadow). Holy smokes. The mosquitoes landing on us were so dense you couldn't see skin or clothing. It simply looked like black fur. Counting kills was impractical when every swat mashed dozens. I am sure it took but a few minutes for the kill tally to reach 1000--I have not kept count since that day. My bro and I dove into the just-pitched tent to take cover killing an enormous number of mosquitoes that managed to follow us in. My dad put on a down jacket in the late afternoon/early evening and his mosquito net, even though it was probably 75 degrees plus, and he went outside to cook dinner. The mosquitoes swarmed to the moisture coming off the boiling pot. My dad would put a rag on top of the pot, both to help remove the lid (when it was hot) and also for cleaning. This rag was pretty moist. It was soon black with mosquitoes attracted to the moisture and warmth. Fortunately for us,this was a short overnighter. Day 2 saw us rising early, climbing Olancha and jetting out to the east side where things were hot, dry, but we didn't lose near as much blood.

As bad as the 1975 trip was, Judy and I encountered worse. We though we had it bad on a late June 1992 trip to northern Emigrant Wilderness. This was pretty bad when camped at Iceland L., then torment when we dayhiked to Long Lake. The mosquitoes were so bad I waded as far as I could out into Long to cast given that it was breezier out there away from the trees and the mosquitoes were marginally less dense out there. Still, that experience did not equal the 1975 one. We didn't equal and exceed the 1975 Olancha experience until we did this amazing New Army to Shepherd Pass shuttle (with lots of great off trail stuff in between) in early July 1996. The ground traveled, similar to Olancha, was not particularly wet or boggy at all, but point in common was higher-than-average temperatures, particularly at night, and a lack of wind. It felt like it was 90 at altitude but I'm sure it was merely in the mid 70's. On this trip the "black fur" syndrome repeated itself day after day. We resigned ourselves to wearing jackets and mosquito nets in the heat of the day. No amount of DEET could deter the winged army. We noticed that the DEET probably turned away 90 percent of the mosquitoes, but when you're dealing with thousands, 90 percent doesn't cut it. With the warm nights and lack of wind, the mosquitoes were active 24 hours a day. We regulated our evening fluid intake much more carefully (ie did not drink as much water as usual in evening) because we found that we would get swarmed by mosquitoes emerging from the tent to go pee at 3 am, and it was a bit hassle to turn on the flashlight and kill the numerous mosquitoes that followed us back into the tent. We took to breaking camp much earlier than usual to beat the peak hordes, but even at 5 am we found amazing clouds of mosquitoes diving on us, although these numbers paled in comparison to the numbers from about 7 am onwards. It was amazing to be swarmed by mosquitoes at New Army Pass, but our mosquito harassment altitude record was soon to be pushed much higher. Eventually we found ourselves attacked as high as 13500 on our ascent of Mt Barnard--13500' is my highest confirmed bite, that is. This trip very much started my habit of choosing campsites on high ground well above the lakes I camp at. I tend to camp unusually high above the lakes in places that get the maximum breeze. It is also on this trip that I clued into the connection between the weather (hot, lack of wind, warm night) and mosquitoes, rather than the usual connection folks make between the sort of setting (swampy, etc) and mosquito density.
Since my fishing (etc.) website is still down, you can be distracted by geology stuff at: http://www.fresnostate.edu/csm/ees/facu ... ayshi.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
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