Preventing insect bites is easy with these tips. Get advice on backpacking, hiking, and the great outdoors in this video.
JOHN FLAHERTY: Hi, my name is John and today we are going to talk about how to avoid insect bites while you are hiking. Insects can be a big nuisance while you are hiking. Different parts of the country and different parts of the world have different kinds of stinging, nasty, biting insects. Many of them have a season. You could be hiking at one point in the area someplace, insect-free, a few months later you are in the clouds of mosquitoes. So, one way to avoid insects or insect bites is to know when the biting insects are going to be in the area we are going to be hiking. Some common examples, up at the Sierra Nevada Mountains here in California, where I like to go hiking in the middle of summer, between about 8000 and 10,000 feet, mosquitoes so thick you can barely see the sky. A slight exaggeration but you get my point. If you go above that line to the higher country, above tree line or stay lower, down where it is hotter and drier, no mosquitoes. So that would be an example of local knowledge, avoiding where the nasty mosquitoes are. Sometimes it is absolutely unavoidable. You want to go hiking in a beautiful area. There are mosquitoes or black flies or other nasty, nasty insects. In that case, we go to plan B, which is insect repellant. So combined with your knowledge, do you need insect repellant? Is it mosquito season-area you are going to be? Insect repellant. Personally, I have known of a lot of different insect repellants. The stuff that works, it is kind of nasty, but it is DEET or Deep Woods Off! It has DEET in it. The higher the DEET concentration, the more effective this is going to be for primarily mosquitoes, but other kinds of stinging nasty insects as well. It is kind of harsh on your skin, though, I would not use it too much, and only if you know that you are going to be in a mosquito or other insect-ridden area. A few other ways you can avoid insect bites--Got one--bare skin. If you are in an area that has a lot of insects that are going to bite you, bare skin is where they are going to get you. A long sleeve shirt and a long pants are going to be better. If you are in a hot area, make sure that your pants and your long sleeve shirt are very lightweight. Sometimes, if the mosquitoes are very, very thick, you might also want to consider wearing mosquito netting around your head in addition to covering up all of your bare skin with longer clothes. And you can very easily buy that at most commercial sporting goods stores and then you would tuck that into your neck and maybe have a broad brimmed hat or a sun hat to hold that mosquito net away from your face. And then you can watch all of your little friends trying to get in to make a meal out of you.
