[pct-l] Oregon

[CHUCK CHELIN]

Good morning,

The discussion of Oregon’s early-summer mosquitoes reminds me of a PCT-L
post a few years ago.  It was an after-action report by a European hiker –
possibly Swiss – who had soloed northbound through part of C. Oregon over
snowpack and through the worst  of the mosquitoes.  I wish I had saved a
copy of that writing because her despair was almost palpable.

It also reminded me of an experience I had during my college years.  I took
a summer job in the engineering department of a USFS District that included
the eastern slopes of the Cascades between the PCT and Hwy-97, just north
of Crater Lake – some really prime mosquito country – and the job started
mid-June, the prime time of the year.

I was tasked with using an optical surveying instrument to take precise
measurements, and then record the results in a data book.  This was long
before the time when data was recorded on electronic media at the push of a
button.

We used lots of DEET.  The survey notes were written with a mechanical
pencil on water-resistant paper to avoid ink running.  The DEET on my
fingers would dissolve the plastic pencil barrel in about 3 days letting
the thing break in half.  Most of the paint disappeared from my aluminum
hard-hat due to the DEET.

During breaks we would play a game to see how many mosquitoes we could each
kill with one double-handed swat on someone else’s back.  As I recall,
unless the resulting body count was at least 60, that contestant was well
off the pace and had to buy the beer that evening.

To this day I can’t understand how I managed to do that job during the bug
season – all day, for about a month and a half -- in the presents of all
those mosquitoes, but that was a time before the availability of abundant
student loans, and I simply had to have work to earn money for school.

Steel-Eye

-Hiking the Pct since before it was the PCT – 1965

http://www.trailjournals.com/steel-eye
http://www.trailjournals.com/SteelEye09/