It’s not quite mosquito season…yet…in the San Francisco Bay Area.  At the rate it’s raining, though, I think we’ll be seeing a lot of the whining little guys once spring gets going.  Some folks have been inquiring about how we deal with mosquitoes (or “mossies” as I like to call them) along the PCT.

Well, first off, after many years of hiking and backpacking, Bill and I (Monty) have learned something:  mosquitoes LOVE to chew on me, and are less interested in Bill.   So I tend to “do more” to protect myself than he does!

Basically, there are 3 main situations you have to plan for.   1) While you are hiking along the trail     2)When you stop for a break (like to eat lunch or a snack) and 3)When you camp.

1) While you are hiking…..If the mosquitoes aren’t too bad, you can just hike fast and outrun them (sometimes).  Once they get more annoying, my next step is to put on gloves (I made these–they are just pants fabric) and a headnet.  My legs are already protected with long pants, and arms with longsleeved shirt.  That usually does the trick, but there are times when the mosquitoes are TOTALLY OUTRAGEOUS.  In that case, I put on my raingear with the headnet, though usually I put the raingear jacket on backwards so that I don’t get as hot.  The pack protects my back just fine.

2) When you stop for a break….At this point, if the mossies are not too bad, a headnet and gloves might be enough.  If they are annoying, I wear full raingear and headnet.  Sometimes they were so outrageously bad that Bill and I crawled into our net tent to eat in peace.

3) When you camp….When Bill is by himself, he rigs the tarp (if he thinks he will need it) or just lays out his groundcloth and sleeping bag.  Then he takes his sleeping clothes (we use superlightweight silk longjohns), walks a little way away from his camp, then VERY FAST, he changes into his sleeping clothes and makes a RUN for the sleeping bag, dives in, burrows in, and he says he then can sleep in peace.  It doesn’t work for me.  So if I am around, and the mossies are around, too, I want the net tent!   I got the idea for it from Ray Jardine’s book, “The Ray-Way Tarp Book.”  Ray designed and sewed what sort of looks like a miniature house.  I liked his design, only I tapered it down at the foot end so that it would be lighter in weight.  It rigs easily under the tarp, and “shares” the tarp stakes.  I cannot think how many times on the PCT, when the mossies were whining around us in clouds, how WONDERFUL it was to rig the net tent, scurry in, and be able to dress/undress/take a “sponge bath”/write in a journal/read/etc. in PEACE!  I remember we were approaching Evolution Creek in the Sierras, when we met the famous thruhiker, “Billy Goat.”   (He was taking a rest break by the trail).  Of course we had to talk to him, and as we were getting ready to leave, I asked him, “How bad is the crossing at Evolution Creek?”  “No problem,” he said.  “It’s only knee deep.  But the mosquitoes are pretty bad.”  He wasn’t kidding.  We rigged our net tent that night!

Aside from the mosquitoes, I wanted to say that I haven’t posted for awhile because we were having some computer issues.  I think they are solved now.  Hopefully.  We continue hiking 3 days a week–Tuesdays it’s ALL day, and Thursdays/Fridays for a couple of hours each.   Every week, we carry more weight.  I’m at 12 pounds now, which is just short of my “base weight” for the PCT.  (Base weight means the weight of my pack and gear, without the consumables of water and food).

The weather here in California is making our training hikes pretty muddy and wet.  On Tuesday we did the Cross Marin trail, plus much of the San Geronimo Ridge.  It’s a great hike for pouring rain weather, since so much of it is rocky rather than muddy, and the Cross Marin part is actually a paved bike path.  And pour it did!   Oh, man, did it pour!  I had decided to wear my waterproof/breathable raingear (which I do NOT wear for the PCT) and it reminded me again of why you can’t trust waterproof/breathable in a downpour that goes on and on.   It does NOT keep you dry!   I was pretty wet by the time we got back to our car at the end of the day.  Some of the wet was just sweat, but some of it was LEAKS.  On the PCT, we use very lightweight silnylon fabric for raingear, and cut to fit quite loosely.  It kept us dry and mostly not sweaty.

Our Tuesday hike was further enlivened by a thunderstorm, which is not that common around here.   Fortunately, when it started to flash ‘n rumble, we had just come down off San Geronimo Ridge.  Whew!  I would not want to have been up top when the lightning started.  All the creeks were roaring, muddy brown.  They looked a lot like the nasty creeks we had to get across going around Mt. Hood up in Oregon.  I was glad to have bridges over the creeks today!   We didn’t have to look for logs.  And we didn’t have to face the prospect of putting on cold, wet clothes, socks and shoes tomorrow morning.  Training hikes are fuuuuuun!