Everything's Gonna Be OK

i had a plan once; it started in new jersey. i’d been hiking and i got swarmed (my thought at the time) by mosquitoes. i would swat them by the handful and leave the carcasses smeared on my skin. like a scarecrow, or when ranchers hang dead coyotes in front of their fences, i figured seeing their dead cousins would be the deterrent of all deterrents.

i have a whole new definition for mosquito swarms since montana. and in this state, they don’t wait for you to stop hiking, put down your pack, and start cooking. there is no way to hike fast enough so they don’t catch you. so. there is a dance to hiking… a shuffle, the montana mosquito two step, and its all simultaneous.

left foot step, right foot brushes past left calf to swipe mosquitoes. plant right foot and left foot brushes by right calf to crush mosquitoes and repeat. my trekking poles have loops. so. right hand slaps left shoulder. then my trekking pole swings around and i grip and plant while my left hand slaps my right shoulder. then my other trekking pole swings around, i grip and plant and repeat. (the slap is sometimes alternated with a wipe down the entire arm to get mosquitoes on my shoulder, bicep, and forearm with one swipe. the dance step also has variations. you may scratch at the back of your leg with the toe of the opposite foot. you may also pass the foot all the way in front of your shin, bend it back around and clear the outside of your lower leg too.)

the good news is that i’ve killed a million mosquitoes. the bad news is that the ten million mosquitoes that have gotten off with my blood have probably delivered nutrients to one hundred million mosquito babies. so i apologize, montana, i’m the donor for this next generation of mosquitoes.

one day, early on in the forging of this new dance, i popped a mosquito heavy with blood on my right shoulder. “just like new jersey, that’ll show ‘em.” until moments later, and there are nine mosquitoes on my shoulder, and one is standing right on the blood spot on my shirt. for the rest of the day, that stain was more like the target in the middle of the bulls eye than a warning label not to land here.

i’ve seen head nets before, but i always associate them with tourists. i thought that because i survived a summer of alaskan mosquitoes, i could handle their puny montana cousins. i thought i’d never be able to wear a head net, that i’d feel too claustrophobic. and hiking in one was right out of the question because the only thing worse than sweating on a hot day would be to sweat under a head net on a hot day.

i tell you i’m a changed man, and i love that head net of mine. its a portable tent for my head. my peace. and sanity. i can muster no calm, rational thought with mosquitoes in my ears, nose, eyes and mouth. i have only panic. fight. flight. and swat. (and further more, i want to find the outdoor gear company that makes zip off pants with the option of nylon legs and bug net legs. if there is such a thing, the dance will be a bit more like the mosquito macarena and only my hands, but less is more in this case.)

when the swarm starts, there is a joy of watching them bang into your head net. the same satisfaction you get at night when you’ve killed the last mosquito in your tent and you see the hundreds bouncing around at your tent door, all of them hoping you roll over in the middle of the night and lie close enough to your bug net for them to get their suckers in you. but this email isn’t about joy or satisfaction, i’ll tell you the worst thing about mosquitoes.

* (if the devil had come down to montana with deet…) all-natural bug repellents don’t work. they smell lovely. i would use them for cologne before i used them as deterrent. deet works. but it also melts plastic. i can’t bring myself to use it. i’m not saying that there may be a weak point one day when i dab it behind my ears, but it scares me. its a moral conundrum and a constant internal argument, but that’s not the worst part about mosquitoes.

* mosquitoes can bite through my shirt, my shorts, hell, they can even bite through my shoes and two pairs of socks, but rain gear is a bug stopper. its not full proof. if one bug gets up under your rain pants, there is another step to the mosquito macarena (its more advanced and involves jumping around spastically and waving erratically. it is not to be practiced without an instructor.) its awful, to know two remedies for mosquitoes and not to be able to use either. have you ever tried hiking in rain gear? just imagine wrapping yourself up in plastic wrap and walking down the street. and even if you could stand sweating out of every pore, this still wouldn’t be the worst part about mosquitoes.

* the jury is still out on using smoke to shoo away mosquitoes. it might work, or breathing all of that carbon monoxide may just make the bites a little more tolerable. at any rate, we have gathered wood quicker than eagle scouts to start fires in montana. there is the common campfire ritual of moving away from the campfire smoke. well, we all would congregate toward it. the only problem is that its summer and still warm out for dinner. and don’t forget you’re wearing your rain gear, head net, thickest pair of socks and gloves to guard against the bugs. you’re already sweating, you’ve been sweating all day, and now you are trying to sit next to a fire. but even that isn’t the worst part about mosquitoes.

* i have two shirts on this trip . i have a hiking shirt and a lounging shirt. i think my hiking shirt scares people. every strap on my backpack has left its mark, its outline. it used to be a white shirt but now it has odd grey-ish blue stripes around my waist and over my shoulders. as if those stains weren’t enough, i also have spots on the top of my shoulder. those stains aren’t from my backpack. those stains are from the blood and guts of the first hundred thousand or so mosquitoes that i smashed into each shoulder. but still new and disgusting stains on my shirt aren’t the worst part about mosquitoes.

* my hiker hunger kicked in early and it hasn’t slowed down. “if there is one thing that blackwell boy can do, it’s eat.” every scrap of food in my bag is pretty sacred. on the worst night of the mosquito swarm somewhere in the big hole divide basin, i sat in most of my clothes, sitting on top of my feet so that the mosquitoes couldn’t land on my shoes, ready for dinner under my head net. its already hard to handle my spoon because i’m wearing my fleece gloves. then imagine, lifting your head net just enough to get the food to your mouth but hopefully not too much as to let in a horde of bugs under the curtain of sanity. the spoonful of cheese/cous-cous/broccoli delight sped from my pot to my mouth. it’s in and i promptly pull my head net back down. and then, i realize, it’s hot. real hot. i start to hee. and haw. i moan a bit. the folks i’m hiking with start to laugh as i try to pull in cool air around my steaming hot dinner. i start to laugh. then cough. and then. and it all happens so fast. i know my supper isn’t staying put. it’s all i can do to lift up my head-net and spit my food out. i managed to miss my head net, but it did land on my bag and the ground. i laughed some more. i cried i was laughing so hard. we brought out cameras and filmed an interview of why you should let supper cool especially when wearing a head net. then i ate the spoonful again. scrapping it off the bag and ground, chewing in some pine needles and dirt. but we still haven’t gotten to the worst part about mosquitoes.

* we had gotten lost in a pasture right outside of east glacier. it was late and the end of a long day. we’d missed our turn and found ourselves in the middle of the worst mosquitoes thus far. i wished and wished and wished for anything but mosquitoes. and finally. lost. confused. we hitched a ride into town. we ate dinner and took showers and the swarm subsided. i thought it was the worst they’d ever be. a week later i was introduced to baby horseflies. they are the size of blackflies but their bites pack a punch. one afternoon, when we stopped for lunch and there was nowhere to hide from the baby horseflies, i wished and wished for anything but those damn baby horseflies. and i got it. the next week, instead of the babies, we had the adults. they hover around you and their buzz can set you on edge for hours while hiking. their stings itch like mosquitoes, burn like baby horseflies and swell like bee stings. and again, i wished for anything but the adult horseflies. and so. the worst thing about mosquitoes is knowing that when they came back in the big hole divide basin, when i was going crazy. and sweating. my shoulders, legs, face and neck on fire from mosquito bites. my whole body covered in welts. when i was spitting up my food and wishing for plastic melting deet. the worst part about mosquitoes was knowing i’d wished for them. and boy did i get it.

slowboat blackwell.

ps. if you’re still reading. i’ll tell you the worst part about horseflies. sometimes you swat at flies and the relief from not being bitten or stung is enough. after a long day of having your arms and legs burn like hell, at some point you need to see dead bodies. it’s not enough to not be bitten, because you’ve been bitten all day. you need revenge. it was early in the morning, but i was already out for blood (or whatever runs through their evil horsefly veins). there was a horsefly hovering around me. i let go of my trekking poles and they hung from my wrists as i clapped once. the horsefly continued to make circles. i clapped again. no dice. i could still hear the buzz. i clapped a third time and still nothing. but this time the horsefly flew down to my hip belt. it landed on the strap that adjusts how snugly the pack holds onto your hips. after three claps, i swatted. i hit the horsefly. hit the strap and unwittingly, hit myself right in the family jewels. i started to cuss and huff and double over. but i also couldn’t help but laugh at the absurdity of it all. which only made me laugh more which only made everything hurt worse. then panda calls down to ask what’s up, and as i try to tell him the story between pangs of pain and laughter, i realize this is the worst part about horseflies.

pss. just in case i forgot to mention, this hike is beyond my wildest dreams. we just finished the first 800 miles in montana and i miss that big sky already.