Biting midges or cedar gnats or no-see-ums
Biting midges, cedar gnats, no-see-ums, basty nasterds etc...
By any name they are the scourge of the southwest and it seems, the world over. I can only talk about the southwest since it's the only place we've run into them. Or rather they've run into us.
We were first introduced to these tiny biters when backpacking the Agua Fria River between Badger Pass and Black Canyon City 20 years ago, our first spring in Arizona.
The girls were young, well we were too, and not prepared for a weekend of terror and torture in the Arizona outback.
During the first day of being swarmed by these "nano-vampires" we had no idea we were being bitten. We couldn't feel them and they don't seem to land long enough to do so much damage. Then we woke up in the middle of the night with every nerve in our body on fire with an indescribable itch. If we itched a bite for first time on our arm, every other bite on our body would flare up immediately making us do a grotesque dance of flailing arms and scraping fingernails as we tried to rip our skin off by intense itching. It seems that all bites are connected and if one is itched, all will fire up at the same time. My girls seem to get it the worst. Lynn took Jess to the Dr. for something unrelated and they thought she had chicken pox. Poor Lynn has been so bitten as to take on a grotesque Frankenstein look that is embarrassing as well as painful.
We learned the hard way that spring is their blood sucking picnic time, which is a favorite time for us poor humans to enjoy a picnic outside as well. And there isn't much that works for repelling them. They can't be killed by swatting, they're too small and fast.
It seems that even their life span has a subset of time when they bite the most. We have been swarmed at times with no bites and a week later when they become so blood thirsty they crawl under my baseball cap and feast on scalp. It can't be determined by a calendar, not even the Whazoo's Almanac. It's hiker or camper beware sometime between the first of May and the end of June.
The bites are horrendous, popping open to weep upon itching before turning to scab. Itch and repeat...for a full week or more. The bite itself will swell and rise from level skin to become a Vesuvius of pain and embarrassment. Embarrassment because it looks like you have a horrible contagious disease. At the very least terrible acne. Pain and itching enough to make you blow your top and invent new words or guttural utterances, yes even in public. And like I mentioned, "the dance of the bitten."
These gnats are small enough to laugh as they fly through our tc window screens. And keep laughing as they crawl through scalp and body hair to take their bloody payment for camping in their territory, Gnat Land.
I'm writing this post because of Mello Mike's response to my Overland Expo thread where I mentioned these demonoid gnats from hell. He mentioned his trip to Valley of the Gods and bites he received there. And that is the main reason we do most of our desert camping in the winter. Spring is typically a no-go for us because of them. If I go backpacking it's alone and with a face net, long sleeves and 100% deet.
Here is a link to a great blog about them. Looking past the first 4 paragraphs it is a good resource for info. Reading the responses below the article also reveals the extent of the issue. There is also much much more written about them that can be googled for more information. If you're not prepared these boogers can and will ruin a vacation.
gnarly gnats link
In my research I had found an unusual repellent that I have not tried yet. So if you see a guy hiking during late spring in the Southwest, dryer sheets under his hat and in fact covering his body, that be me.
As a side note, I'm from Georgia where we had chiggers, another of God's tiny irritating creatures. We used to drink cider vinegar before going out to pick blackberries or play in the woods. It was Grand Ma's homespun insect repellant. We would sweat profusely in the southern humidity and therefore sweat vinegar. Looking back I can say it must have worked, having chiggers only on occasion for all the time we spent in the woods.
So next time I'm setting up a springtime evening camp in the southwest with the tc, before I reach for the rum and coke, I'll have a good long swig of vinegar, make that a double please.
By any name they are the scourge of the southwest and it seems, the world over. I can only talk about the southwest since it's the only place we've run into them. Or rather they've run into us.
We were first introduced to these tiny biters when backpacking the Agua Fria River between Badger Pass and Black Canyon City 20 years ago, our first spring in Arizona.
The girls were young, well we were too, and not prepared for a weekend of terror and torture in the Arizona outback.
During the first day of being swarmed by these "nano-vampires" we had no idea we were being bitten. We couldn't feel them and they don't seem to land long enough to do so much damage. Then we woke up in the middle of the night with every nerve in our body on fire with an indescribable itch. If we itched a bite for first time on our arm, every other bite on our body would flare up immediately making us do a grotesque dance of flailing arms and scraping fingernails as we tried to rip our skin off by intense itching. It seems that all bites are connected and if one is itched, all will fire up at the same time. My girls seem to get it the worst. Lynn took Jess to the Dr. for something unrelated and they thought she had chicken pox. Poor Lynn has been so bitten as to take on a grotesque Frankenstein look that is embarrassing as well as painful.
We learned the hard way that spring is their blood sucking picnic time, which is a favorite time for us poor humans to enjoy a picnic outside as well. And there isn't much that works for repelling them. They can't be killed by swatting, they're too small and fast.
It seems that even their life span has a subset of time when they bite the most. We have been swarmed at times with no bites and a week later when they become so blood thirsty they crawl under my baseball cap and feast on scalp. It can't be determined by a calendar, not even the Whazoo's Almanac. It's hiker or camper beware sometime between the first of May and the end of June.
The bites are horrendous, popping open to weep upon itching before turning to scab. Itch and repeat...for a full week or more. The bite itself will swell and rise from level skin to become a Vesuvius of pain and embarrassment. Embarrassment because it looks like you have a horrible contagious disease. At the very least terrible acne. Pain and itching enough to make you blow your top and invent new words or guttural utterances, yes even in public. And like I mentioned, "the dance of the bitten."
These gnats are small enough to laugh as they fly through our tc window screens. And keep laughing as they crawl through scalp and body hair to take their bloody payment for camping in their territory, Gnat Land.
I'm writing this post because of Mello Mike's response to my Overland Expo thread where I mentioned these demonoid gnats from hell. He mentioned his trip to Valley of the Gods and bites he received there. And that is the main reason we do most of our desert camping in the winter. Spring is typically a no-go for us because of them. If I go backpacking it's alone and with a face net, long sleeves and 100% deet.
Here is a link to a great blog about them. Looking past the first 4 paragraphs it is a good resource for info. Reading the responses below the article also reveals the extent of the issue. There is also much much more written about them that can be googled for more information. If you're not prepared these boogers can and will ruin a vacation.
gnarly gnats link
In my research I had found an unusual repellent that I have not tried yet. So if you see a guy hiking during late spring in the Southwest, dryer sheets under his hat and in fact covering his body, that be me.
As a side note, I'm from Georgia where we had chiggers, another of God's tiny irritating creatures. We used to drink cider vinegar before going out to pick blackberries or play in the woods. It was Grand Ma's homespun insect repellant. We would sweat profusely in the southern humidity and therefore sweat vinegar. Looking back I can say it must have worked, having chiggers only on occasion for all the time we spent in the woods.
So next time I'm setting up a springtime evening camp in the southwest with the tc, before I reach for the rum and coke, I'll have a good long swig of vinegar, make that a double please.
