High Sierra Topix

Use the following scale to report severity of the mozzies you experience:

1 - No mosquitoes or if there are some, but not biting yet

2 - Very light during the day, moderate at dawn and dusk

3 - Moderate during the day, heavy at dawn and dusk

4 - Heavy during the day, heavy at dawn and dusk

5 - Unbearable all day, no breaks, cannot eat outside of tent. If you stop, hundreds will descend on you; when looking thru a camera viewfinder, you see more skeeters than lake. If you slapped your arm, you'd smear blood from all the dead gorged bodies

Please do not post questions or ask about a particular area in this thread. Also, include where you went, with dates included, in the "Subject" box. Thanks

Lake Eleanor and Kibbie Lake (WNW Yosemite)
April 17-19, 2022
1 - very few to zero mosquitos the entire two days (patches of snow remain at ~7000 feet)

Sequoia National Park - near Alta/Lakes trails

May 15, 2022

2 - Definitely was bitten in shady areas during mid-day. Could see plenty in the air - the hatch has occurred here.

Emigrant Wilderness, Crabtree Trail and points north:

late night 5/26 Crabtree TH: 2+ way more than I expected for a late night arrival, killed like 10 in our vehicle after leaving the doors open to unload.

5/27: Crabtree TH -> Gem Lake
Mostly a 2, not very bothersome though.

5/28: pretty much a 1 all day; a few at Gem Lake in the morning, then none at all (Wire Lakes, Spring Creek, Toejam Lake, Leopold Lake, Tom's Canyon). Unsurprising though, as there's still a fair bit of snow at the higher elevations.

5/29: 1 all day (Tom's Canyon, Granite Lake, Y Meadows, Chewing Gum Lake, Crabtree TH)

1 - Hatch has occurred as evidenced by the cloud of skeeters that gathered above our tent. However, no bites despite not putting on repellent.

2 at the portal near the creek and the walk-in campground, none up higher to the summit on the main trail, but it was a windy day

2 - along the Tuolumne River / GCoT. Didn't use any prevention and bugs were not often very noticeable, but I came home with some bites on exposed skin.

Western Emigrant May 30-June 3.

There was a hard freeze on May 29 and we saw no skeets as we entered Emigrant on May 30. Each additional day the skeets got a little worse. Averaging our experience at Paiute, Gem, Jewelry, West Fork Cherry, and Grouse I would say they rated about a 2 overall. Many stretches during the day when there were none, occasional moments when we wore head nets or Deet to keep 15-20 of them away from our faces. The worst moments were at that time of evening between the up canyon winds and the down canyon winds when the air was still and before it cooled down.

I predict rapidly worsening skeeters throughout the area the further we get from the May 29 freeze.

Survived 3 days with no bites! Dreamy trip - minimal bugs, very few people encountered.

6/3 - Horseshoe Parking -> Miter Basin: 0 (mostly breezy, but even when calm saw none)
6/4 - Miter Basin exploring -> Upper Solider: 1 or 2 (swarms at Upper Solider but no bites… mostly just annoying)
6/5 - Upper Solider -> Horseshoe Parking: 0 (the swarms at Upper Solider the previous day were non-existent… thanks to the winds )

Visited all lakes except Summit and 7th. Windy all 4 days with rain on Saturday.
Mosquitoes were out but not too many yet. Most were around the creeks and shallow water area.
Level 2 at all lakes. Got 5 bites the entire trip with DEET protection.