[pct-l] Oregon

[Diarmaid Harmon]

Oregons mosquito season depends a lot on the type of spring we get. If we get a sunny warm stretch followed by a cold snap then we will have a low pest year, of course some areas will defy this rule.
On the flip side a long cold wet spring will push the critters out even further leading to a late season with abundant mosquitoes into August. 

Irish.

On Jan 26, 2013, at 6:18 AM, CHUCK CHELIN wrote:

> 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/
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