Biting midges or cedar gnats or no-see-ums

I met the little buggers in the spring of 1980 while we were doing soils investigations for the BLM in SW Colorado. We were working in the shad scale desert west of Cortez near the Ute Mt Reservation and the Utah line. We had a 4 ft. backhoe pit we were working in and our heads were just at swarming height. Ate us to pieces. Sent one of the crew to the Ismay Trading post to get something. The old trader recommended just rubbing on diesel fuel (he did not get to town much). Finally got some Govt issued bug dope left over from Viet Nam. It was about 80 percent Deet. Worked Ok, but would take the paint off our pencils and dissolve (make soft) plastic pens. After working in them for a few weeks, I can remember running through the trees swinging madly at them with my shovel (didn’t help but I felt better). We had a photo of a coworkers arm with about 50 of them nasty little things on it. Put one crew member in the ER with blood poisoning as they started to send red streaks up his arms from the bites. One problem we had was trying to figure out what to do for lunch out in the desert, sit in the truck with the windows rolled up and cooking or rolling down the windows and getting eaten. The bites did not really bother me as much as others, but the insistent high pitched buzzing would drive me nuts. Just one of the many adventures as a government hole digger (Soil Scientist) for 30 years.