[pct-l] Deet 20% or 100%

[sue.kettles at comcast.net (sue.kettles@comcast.net)]

Where were you hiking?
-------------- Original message -------------- 
From: "Kimberly Sorbello" <ksorbello@hotmail.com> 

> fwiw, 
> hiked 26 miles through tick area this weekend and went crazy flicking off 
> ticks after using 100% deet on ankles (under long pants in spite of the warm 
> days) and all exposed areas. Still, my husband and I each found a tick on 
> our bottoms unnoticed at the end of the day, and he had one imbedded in his 
> thigh and one in his armpit. Not good. Second day we made ourselves 
> paranoid with tick checks every 15-30 minutes and every snack/breath break 
> (steep hills). Third day we wised up and used the rest of our spray bottle 
> of deet to cover our whole pants and sleeves with the spray in addition to 
> ankles and exposed skin and we didn't have a single tick all day except one 
> on my pants leg that jumped/fell off immediately. Hiked the rest of the day 
> on narrow trail happily and found ourselves not even checking anymore for 
> long periods of time. Made us decide to stick to light colored clothing and 
> spray the dickens onto our trail clothes at the parking lot next time. (We 
> don't wear the same clothes to sleep.) But in tick country, gotta make sure 
> to not need to go pee in the night! Those little guys are invisible in the 
> dark! My husband spent time in the doctor's office today getting the heads 
> cut out and picking up antibiotics. Increases the cost of the weekend 
> considerably! 
> Just a trail prep thought... I don't know which areas of the PCT are 
> tick-infested. 
> Kim 
> 
> 
> From: The Mountain Goat 
> To: pct mailing list 
> Subject: [pct-l] Deet 20% or 100% 
> Date: Mon, 13 Feb 2006 21:17:32 -0800 (PST) 
> 
> 
> It may be true that deet works good with 20% and that below that 
> the bloody thirsty varments may start to attack. But the 20-30% 
> in some trail tests in the late 1990's with my hiking companions 
> as unsuspecting test canidates, found that it was good for no more than 
> 30 minutes, the 100% seemed to work for about 1 hour. sometime a litte 
> longer. 
> 
> Good Luck to the Class of 06. I wish I could join you. 
> -Mountain Goat- 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> [pct-l] Deet Jerry Goller jerrygoller at backpackgeartest.org 
> Wed Feb 8 13:55:02 CST 2006 
> --------------------------------- 
> 
> Interesting. According to the military's own research, concentrations of 
> DEET above 30% did not increase effectiveness. What did increase it was 
> timed release. The military developed a polymer based controlled released 
> formula that successfully addressed the break down issue and is available 
> commercially as 3M Ultrathon (just over 30% concentration) in both a cream 
> and a spray. Sawyer Controlled Release is a similar product with a 
> concentration of about 20%. 
> 
> The reason that 100% appears to work better is that DEET starts to break 
> down as soon as it is applied to the skin. It continues to break down until 
> it completely loses it's ability to repel, which is below 20%. Obviously, it 
> takes 100% longer to break down than it does 30%. 
> 
> With controlled release DEET the DEET is encapsulated in a polymer at 
> "protects" the DEET molecules from breaking down. The polymers are 
> formulated to break down at different rates therefore allowing a constant 
> concentration of between 20 and 30%, depending on the brand, over a much 
> longer time period. Protection over 12 hours or greater is very common. I 
> only apply it once a day. 
> 
> Now I will agree that in very high concentrations of particularly aggressive 
> mosquitoes it is possible that augmentation with 100% concentration could be 
> beneficial. I've not run into that yet, but have read about it. 
> 
> This system last longer than 100% DEET, is resistant to dilution by 
> sweating, is much more comfortable to wear, and it also tends to limit 
> dermal absorption of the DEET. 
> 
> We tested both products on BGT. 
> 
> 
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> http://mailman.hack.net/mailman/listinfo/pct-l From ryan_christensen at sbcglobal.net  Wed Feb 15 01:27:50 2006
From: ryan_christensen at sbcglobal.net (Ryan Christensen)
Date: Wed Feb 15 01:36:40 2006
Subject: [pct-l] Canister Fuel Sizes
In-Reply-To: <020201c6345a$b2fc2d90$3502a8c0@LapDancer>
Message-ID: <20060215072750.49884.qmail@web80728.mail.yahoo.com>

Good Evening Fellow PCT'ers:
   
  I have been trying to decide between buying 4 oz isobutane canisters or 8 oz canisters for the PCT. 
   
  For those who have experience this: What would you choose? 
   
  A big plus side to the 8 oz is that you do not have to ship as many of them, thus having less of a chance of a re-supply box not arriving because it was shipped ground only.
   
  Ryan