Beautiful views of Tahoma, the Snoqualmie pass and watersheds await up top, and I loved getting to check out the spectacular overhanging cave with the fixed gear that I will come back and climb at some point this summer, but I am writing this report to warn about mosquito conditions.
My light colored, covers-everything-but-my-hands-and-face clothing, Repel brand lemon-eucalyptus bug spray and lemongrass soap seemed silly to the cloud of mosquitos I was never fast enough to evade on my way up. The silver lining of the mosquito cloud was that I beat the average Alltrails time by an hour thanks to those mosquitos, and there were none at the top as I sat staring at Tahoma.
My buzzing friends rejoined me the minute I entered back into the forest on my way down, and no reapplication of Repel spray, or pulling my UV hoodie closed around my head did anything to keep my little buzz buzz buds from chewing me up this past Sunday. I know I have their favorite blood type (O), and that how hot it was meant that lactic acid (given off while exercising), acetone (a chemical released in your breath), and estradiol (a breakdown product of estrogen) were all at play for me, but those mosquitos dominated this hiking experience for me in a way I have yet to experience. I grew up fishing at sunset and sunrise in the Florida everglades and marshes, spent a lot of time in jungles in Central America where they were dense, love summer camping at Graves Creek in the Quinault Valley, and have been to Alaska when they are swarming, so I feel like I have a non-Washington state level of mosquito familiarity.
I started at 12:00 pm after climbing at Little Si, which had no mosquitos on the way up and down, nor while climbing or belaying at World Wall, and finished at 5:27 pm, with a 20 minute break at the top. I thought about how I should get apiary clothing before coming back out to any place that had a lot of snow that has melted, since going up and down Thunder Mountain a couple of weeks ago, there were a decent amount of mosquitos, too, but it was nothing compared to the level I experienced going up and down Mount Washington on Sunday, 2023-07-09.
A group using "Skeeter Screen" said they were fine when I asked how their mosquito experience had been while up top, so maybe I just have a crappy version of DEET-free bug repellant, but that brand (Repel) has always worked for me up until this year.
This hike was still spectacular, but no black clothing right now, and bring a repellant you know to be effective against mosquitos!
Comments