Bug Spray and ear plugs would have to be my admission to guilt. Over here on the coast of SC, the mosquito, (SC state bird), could be mistaken as a bp'ers friend if it weren't for the teeth! I say friends cause these tyrants travel in packs whose #'s rival that of our national debt. They decend on their prey, latch on and try to carry you away, thus reducing the effects of gravity. The ear plugs are so that when I come off the trail, I can still hear. The noise they make already makes hearing anything else like bear, wolves, jets and such impossible anyway. All joking aside, I've seriously considered moving just so I can be closer to an area not so prolific with these feathered beasts. My last trip in, I carried 3 different brands of spray just to try and concoct an insidious top layer that will kill the offspring of these guys, before they have even been conceived. Still, they just laugh. Evolution has provided them with a biological gass mask and my Frankenstine lab will never come up with a mixture that will do anything more than shorten my own life span.

I frequently look as though I'm on drugs or something, due to my top layer covering every spec of skin. As hot as it gets here in the summer, I'd still rather cover completely up rather than wish that I hadn't even gone out due to itching all over.

BF,
that's Yosemite falls in the back ground, the photo is taken 500 feet up - note the angle of the rock behind me. A great day on the rock. I guess the tape on my fingers was a luxury. Jim