A new hiking scale for Bugs

[balzaccom]

Those who are sailors will be acquainted with the Beaufort Scale, which is used to grade the force of winds at sea. A force ten gale is something fierce, and the scale tops out at twelve--a full-blown hurricane. Each step is accompanied by a description of the sea at that force of wind. A good system.

So we were thinking...

What if we had a similar scale for mosquitoes in the wilderness? We could call it the Bugforce Scale. Here's our suggestion:

0--Zero. Really. No mosquitoes.
1--I think I may have seen one. But maybe it was a gnat.
2--OK, I saw one, and heard one, but didn't actually get bitten,
3--Yeah, there were some in a few spots. Only the timid put on organic bug juice.
4--Got a few bites, but I got more of them than they got of me.
5--Time for DEET at dawn and dusk. Hiking, we just slapped and sped up.
6--DEET while hiking. Headnets at dawn and dusk
7--Pick your camp spots carefully, up on the ridge in the wind. Bites between hat and sunglasses--how do they get in there?
8--Long sleeves and long pants, I don't care how hot it is. Pray for wind.
9--Headnets while hiking, or you'll breathe in at least one bug per mile. DEET dissolves sunglasses
10--Clouds of mosquitoes waiting on the trail and on the screen of the tent. Open warfare. DEET dissolves watchband, and it's stainless steel.
11--We made it out alive.
12--They got Walter RIP, Walter.

[c9h13no3]

It goes to 11

[maverick]

I think what we already have is way adequate, plus conditions change day to day, from location to location, so being very precise isn't needed.

12--They got Larry. RIP, Larry.

Using another name would have been more thoughtful B.

[rlown]

There are bugs or there aren't and it depends on wind/weather. Current scale is good enough.
Come with me on a duck hunt in late October and I'll show you skeeters.

[balzaccom]

Maverick--my apologies. I've edited the initial post. The choice of name was thoughtless of me.

[SSSdave]

And then there are far less discouraged by DEET tiny biting black flies we in the high Sierra Nevada see far less of versus say the Colorado Plateau. Note black flies are however common along marshy Mono Lake shores May into early June.

[Wandering Daisy]

Too complicated! I like a scale of three:

1) none to just the few in specific localities I basically ignore
2) enough, in enough locations, that I have to use clothing, head nets, or repellants
3) so many that I bail out ( I did that once from States Lake on the Monarch Divide)

[kpeter]

While the current scale if fine in a utilitarian way, I enjoyed the humor in a 12 point scale. There are times, sitting in my tent watching the mosquitoes turn the netting black, that I could imagine spending my time thinking up a 20 point or a 100 point scale.