Yosemite hike update

[ignatiusjk]

I recently ask if anyone had done the Cathedral lakes hike in Yosemite.Well I have since returned and I am proud to say I did do the Cathedral lakes hike. The hike for me was a little bit hard since I have 25-30lbs of camera gear on my back.The one thing that was unreal though were those DAMN mosquitoes. Wow when I reached the upper lake I got to a large granite shelf and thought that the mosquitoes would not bother me.WRONG!!! They were so bad I could not open up my camera bag or even set up my tripod.I took a hand held picture. I was so pissed,I walked 4 miles with a heavy camera bag only to have some mosquitoes ruin it. I have never been swarmed like that before by any animal or pest before.

[bvaughn4]

Tuolumne Meadows is the worst place I ever saw for mosquitos. It was early June and the Tioga Pass had just opened. Ground was squishy from the snow melt and the mosquitos were like a fog! Still love that part of the world though!

[ignatiusjk]

I have never been swarmed by mosquitoes like that EVER. I did like that area of the park

[Nathan Potter]

Try the Keene bog in Stillwater ME in June. The clouds of mosquitos and black flies are so thick around your head they alter the spot meter readings and get trapped inside the camera bellows where they leave tracks on the film during long exposures. On second thought, don't try the ME bogs in June unless you have a headnet and gloves or are saturated with DEET.

Nate Potter. Austin TX.

[Vaughn]

Not a single mosquito when I went -- but then it was all snow. My other trips into the Sierra high country tended to be much later in the summer.

Sorry your hike was so bug-infested. I just got back from Lava Beds Nat Monument in NE CA. A few mosquitoes, but only a few -- no open water in that country. I might head into the darkroom tonight and develop the 8x10's (not many) from that trip. The trip was mostly to explore the lava tubes with my boys -- not a place for LF, but I did take 3 or 4 different images. Since it was the middle of the week, we had most of the tubes to ourselves and there were empty campsites. Temperatures were getting into the mid-80's, but as low as 33F in the some of the lava tubes. Came home to rain -- good old Humboldt County!

Vaughn

[Drew Wiley]

They're more appropriately called wildlife, not mosquitos, and are a legitimate part of the
ecosystem, just as you an inherent component of the food chain! In my catalog there
are two sane parts of Sierra summers - pre-mosquito and post-mosquito. If you want the
most wildflowers and most solitude, choose the time inbetween.

[ROL]

The one thing that was unreal though were those DAMN mosquitoes. Wow when I reached the upper lake I got to a large granite shelf and thought that the mosquitoes would not bother me.WRONG!!! They were so bad I could not open up my camera bag or even set up my tripod.I took a hand held picture. I was so pissed,I walked 4 miles with a heavy camera bag only to have some mosquitoes ruin it. I have never been swarmed like that before by any animal or pest before.

Whiner. You obviously didn't go out last year – EPIC. I have negatives from 2002 at Lake Ediza with skeeter legs dangling into the margins. The Sierra is so dry right now it looks lake late August – September in a normal snow year. Try returning after the middle of July, when I'm fairly certain they will no longer be a problem. FWIW, they were only (?!?) a problem in the evening and morning (best shooting) south of Mt. Whitney, Army Pass to Miter Basin, last week(end).


Sky Blue Lake (11,600') 6/22/12
http://www.rangeoflightphotography.com/SupportPics/SummitPost/MiterBasin2012/FootViewSkyBlueLake.jpg

[goamules]

I've only been in mosquitoes like that once, on a whitewater rafting trip on the Colorado river. As soon as you pulled ashore, swarms were all over you. Bug spray didn't do much, and we couldn't even stand around the fire or eat our food. Everyone covered our arms and head with T-shirts and ran for the tents. I think sometimes there is a "hatch" or something and they are a problem, but other times there are none. By the way, in the desert everything bites, stings, or is poisonous. But thankfully there are usually no mosquitoes, I never even carry spray when I'm hiking in the desert. Mountains and streams, yes.

[ROL]

I've only been in mosquitoes like that once, on a whitewater rafting trip on the Colorado river.

What time of year was that?

[Drew Wiley]

Gosh ROL, it's been a long time since I've been to Sky Blue. I trucked my Sinar over the
top there to Mitre Basin, then clear up the Kern headwaters. My nephew was along, complaining all the time about how heavy his pack was scrambling over those 13000 ft sections. When we got to Wright Lks he was digging into the bottom of his pack and
found the Duraflame log I had put in there, and wasn't amused. That night I arrived back in camp long after dark, having carried the Sinar up one of those surrounding peaks, and
tried to climb in my sleeping bag. It was full of pitchy pine cones.

[Drew Wiley]

Er, I meant over the top to Crabtree. It's a wonderful but steep section, with an incredible
slab of olivine pseudo-fossil fern-like crystals up there. The rosy moutain finches were so
tame that they were eating cracked corn nuts out of our hands at the summit.

[Alan Curtis]

I conducted research on mosquitoes in the Florida Everglades for many years, I'm a retired Entomologist. There are few places in the world that have mosquitoes as bad as the Everglades in the summer and fall. The two things that worked to keep them from removing all my blood was a repellant with at least 30% DEET or a bug suit available from REI, it is sort of like wearing a net but, it works. Some of them are impregnated with permethrin, it's what he military uses.

[ROL]

Alan, my wife bought us both cheap bug suits a few years ago. I've never used mine, but she, being much more sensitive (to bugs), has used hers mostly without success. It tends to ride too close to the skin, allowing the little buggers to stick their probosces right through. I normally just don rainsuit windbreaker and pants, with head net supported by a hat when things get bad enough. It has to get really bad, or hot enough that I must leave exposed skin, to use DEET preparations. So the question is, how does one properly and effectively wear a bug suit?

[Alan Curtis]

The suit has to fit very loosely, much bigger the better and the mesh has to be very small. I made sure that I had repellant on the areas where the suit could lay flat. When there are thousands of mosquitoes after you nothing will keep all of them away except a rain suit, which is not too comfortable in the tropics. I did a couple of Discovery Channel shows with Nigel Marvin, he and his crew claimed they would rather swim with Great White Sharks than face the mosquitoes in the Everglades again.

[Two23]

I'm run into my share of mosquitos in the lake country of South Dakota and Minnesota, and they are truly epic in Arctic Canada. Wife & I have bug net suits, which we soaked in permethrin before we left. When the bugs land on that, they die. It's also the only thing that reliably repels ticks and chiggers. Our solution the past couple of years has been to simply go to Iceland. No biting insects at all.


Kent in SD

[David Lobato]

ROL, I recently finished that Bryson book and thoroughly enjoyed it.

[ROL]

Thanks Alan – I guess my wife will inherit my bug suit, potentially treated.

David – "finished", HA! I've been carrying it on every multi–day trail and river for at least 5 years (importantly, the paperback is light reading), mostly re–reading the first part again and again. Unbelievably, I made through to the second part on the last hike, but still haven't finished it. :D:o:D

[Drew Wiley]

Maybe an IV with DEET instead of plasma? I always know when the bugs are bad if the first squadron doesn't bite at all, but simply licks off all the repellant ahead of the main
invasion. What works way better than repellant is an attractant - like a light complexion
blonde hiking partner - the bugs will leave you alone and zero in on them. I'd much rather
have mosquitos than swarms of no-see-ums that can get right thru fabric, or big horseflies
that can stab clear thru anything. Heading over Tioga tomorrow, but will probably camp up
around Sonora Pass - the volcanic terrain up there breeds a lot less bugs than the granite
to the south.

[ROL]

What works way better than repellant is an attractant - like a light complexion
blonde hiking partner - the bugs will leave you alone and zero in on them.

Well, that settles it. Drew and I will never hike together.

[tgtaylor]

Mosquitoes are territorial. I've been in areas where they literally swarm you and not far away there are none to be found. Nothing I've found seems to be as effective as 100% deet: If you are being swarmed while having it on, they will keep at a respectable radius, about a foot or so, which they can't penetrate although trying. It's as if there exists a force field between you and them which they can't breach.

That said I once purchased a natural repellant in a glass container at a drugstore in France while on a bicycle tour. They didn't sell the deet products but the pharmacists assured me this natural repellant would work as well. It worked while I was on tour but the bottle broke before I got back to the states so I never tried it in the Sierra. I think, however, that I would work here but I would be concerned that the strong orod of banannas would attract bears.

Thomas

[Alan Curtis]

Mosquitoes are more attracted to dark colors, so if you can convince your companions to wear black and you wear white more of them well attack them than you. There is a fairly new repellant developed for the military called Picaridin it works quite well and is readily available, all of the major repellant providers sell it. Some of the natural repellants like eucalyptus, lemon and citronella sort of work but, not for the length of time DEET and Picaridin do and they can actually be more irritating than DEET or Picaridin.
If you are in a location were disease transmission by mosquitoes is a concern don't use anything other than DEET or Picaridin.

[ROL]

Anecdotally, we bought commercial picaridin repellants (i.e., Off) a few years ago, because of their promising test results against DEET and safer long term use with nylon fabrics – pretty much everything worn or carried into the backcountry these days. My wife, who coincidentally is darker and less blond (:rolleyes:) and apparently more desirable, and I have not found picaridin to be nearly as effective or long–lasting as 30 – 40% DEET, at least for the variety of little Sierran vampires.

[Alan Curtis]

Actually, I don't use repellants at all. After 40+ years working professionally with the little vampires I developed an immunity to them. They still bite me but, I don't react. If you google Alan Curtis mosquito legs, the first image that appears is my legs and mosquitoes after a 1977 hurricane here in Florida. It's about 500 mosquitoes front and back. It is a self portrait, I couldn't get anyone to endure the situation with me. It's not LF by the way.

[Keith S. Walklet]

ROL... The mention of Nylon caught my eye... I discovered quite by accident that a tightly woven nylon works wonders against mosquitoes. I've purchased nothing but Nylon shirts and pants for backpacking for some time now such as the Columbia brand Titanium fabric and North Face nylon zip off pants. The mosquitoes can't bite through that fabric. They can bite through poly blends.

For entertainment, I love to bend my knee and get the fabric taught on the pants and watch them poke around in frustration. When the mosquitoes are really aggressive, then I resort to a minimal application of Deet onto the backs of my hands, neck, ears and temples.

[David Schaller]

Well, the mosquitoes bit through, or perhaps got underneath my light-colored nylon pants on a trip last week to northern NH. I didn't even realize it at the time, concentrating on my fly fishing!
76577

I am using bug dope tonight when I go canoeing.
Dave

[Drew Wiley]

I was just up the hill for a quick loop over Tioga, a dayhike up Virginia Lks, and back over
Sonora. Never got a single bite, though the bugs were still a bit heavy in the shade up
around Tuolumne Mdw. Camped in aspen outside the Park. It's a relative drought year - not as bad as some years I've seen, but more like early Aug than a typical 4th of July.
Very clear air everywhere. Just hope it stays that way in a month when I start backpcking
in earnest, and that there won't be forest fire smoke drifting in from somewhere. Feel sorry
for the nightmare folks are going thru in Colorado right now, but if you want to live amidst
lodgpole pines, it's only a matter of time.

[John Kasaian]

Baaad skeeters in Little Yosemite Valley! Once I was up there on my way to Half dome while wearing a long sleeve flannel shirt. One of those lil' guys stuck his proboscus right into the flannel! It looked like I'd been shot with one of those air gun darts!
The worst skeeters I've seen were in the Alaska. I'd keep the leading edges of the Cub waxed to keep the dead skeeters from building up on the wings.

[Drew Wiley]

I drove over Tioga last Thurs and there was very little traffic - more interested in the lower
foothills photographically to and from - but needed some altitude too. Going past the
Cathedral Lks trailhead, however, there was an immense number of cars parked, and a whole herd of young folks naively heading out in T-shirts and shorts. I'll bet the "wildlife"
really ate well on that trail, that particular day.

[Kodachrome25]

The hike for me was a little bit hard since I have 25-30lbs of camera gear on my back.

As a pro who has over 100 summits and thousands of miles in the wilderness to his credit, I will never-ever understand what convinces amateurs to carry so much gear. I shot an entire article for Outside Magazine with a single D700 and 28mm F/2, 500 C/M with a 100mm 3.5, 50mm F/4 and two backs...28 miles in one day with nearly 9,000 feet of vertical gained at an average elevation of 11,000 feet...

I think my entire pack hit 18 pounds when the 90OZ Camelbak was full. It also included clothing, food, spare food, headlamp, water filter, GPS, tripod, bivy sack, etc.

My standard 3 lens, 6 holder 4x5 kit tips the scales at 8 pounds...with the CF tripod, filters, step up rings, Harrison Pup tent, etc.

[Drew Wiley]

I haven't had an eighteen pound pack since I was eighteen! For the last thirty years it has
seldom been below eighty. Now I'm dreaming of 60 as ultralight. You start life in diapers and go out in diapers, start photography with 35mm and apparently go out that way too.
I'd like to see anyone travel for ten days carrying the necessary things for survival plus
a 4x5 system for less than fifty or sixty lbs, and that's with all the newer technology like
carbon fiber, 800-fill down, tiny lenses, Quickload (well, there goes that one)...

[ROL]

As a pro who has over 100 summits and thousands of miles in the wilderness to his credit, I will never-ever understand what convinces amateurs to carry so much gear. I shot an entire article for Outside Magazine with a single D700 and 28mm F/2, 500 C/M with a 100mm 3.5, 50mm F/4 and two backs...28 miles in one day with nearly 9,000 feet of vertical gained at an average elevation of 11,000 feet...

I think my entire pack hit 18 pounds when the 90OZ Camelbak was full. It also included clothing, food, spare food, headlamp, water filter, GPS, tripod, bivy sack, etc.

My standard 3 lens, 6 holder 4x5 kit tips the scales at 8 pounds...with the CF tripod, filters, step up rings, Harrison Pup tent, etc.

...and I'll never understand why anyone needs that many photographic systems to do one thing, shoot for Outside. Seems like a lot of braggadocio...

My horrible truth is that I have been unable to get my bare bones 5X7 kit (camera, 2 or 3 lenses w/ mounted step up rings, 2 or 3 filters, spot meter, 5 loaded film holders, CF tripod, windbreaker dark cloth, headlamp, map, lunch) under 25 lbs. God (or whomever) forbid I should add more weight and fill the water bladder, and not drink from pure streams. No bivvy, no GPS, no iAnything. That's my base (with pack), gaining and losing as little elevation as necessary – and dat's dat.

[Kodachrome25]

I haven't had an eighteen pound pack since I was eighteen! For the last thirty years it has
seldom been below eighty. Now I'm dreaming of 60 as ultralight. You start life in diapers and go out in diapers, start photography with 35mm and apparently go out that way too.
I'd like to see anyone travel for ten days carrying the necessary things for survival plus
a 4x5 system for less than fifty or sixty lbs, and that's with all the newer technology like
carbon fiber, 800-fill down, tiny lenses, Quickload (well, there goes that one)...

My average is 35-45 for trips like that, camera gear always weighs about 6-12 pounds, tripod included, 4x5 as well. John Fielder used to bring a Linhof, 7 lenses, 30 holders, 3 people and a pair of llamas, I can't work like that where I want to go, I do 3rd to 4th class climbs with my gear just to get new POV's.

The last time I saw 80 pounds was in Tasmania on a 140 mile trek in some extremely remote wilderness, there is not a lot of scrambling you can do with that kind of weight. I was using a Bora 95 L pack, the thing weighed 7.4 pounds empty. Now none of my packs weigh over 4.5 pounds, sleeping bags at 3 pounds or less, favorite one, Marmot Helium at less than two pounds and compresses into the size of a grapefruit.

You do this long enough for a living and you figure it out quick or you get kicked off of expeditions or at least not invited back.

[Drew Wiley]

Well, I've certainly done my share of class 3 scrambling with an 85-pounder. I liked the
Sinar back in those days for the long lens compatibility (I still have a 28-inch bellows on it). Now my strategy is to carry the 8x10 on dayhikes, so that the little Ebony 4x5 will seem real light on those longer backpacks! But at this point in life, each added year seems
to make the pack a pound or two heavier! Maybe I should seal the belows more than light
tight and fill it with helium!

[ROL]

...You start life in diapers and go out in diapers, start photography with 35mm and apparently go out that way too...

More like digital P&S. And diapers – come to think of it, I did carry a few baby wipes with me:D. On my last 4 day excursion (earlier this thread), I started out with 27 lbs., including a bear cannister (drat!) and quart of water, ending up with less than 23. No tripod. My knees thanked me, and the goal was not fine art photographic prints. Rather, this was the goal:


http://www.rangeoflightphotography.com/SupportPics/SummitPost/MiterBasin2012/BenMiterSkyBlueLake.jpg

[Kodachrome25]

...and I'll never understand why anyone needs that many photographic systems to do one thing, shoot for Outside. Seems like a lot of braggadocio...

Things are not what they may seem. The black and white in the Blad was for that now cliche include the frame look for the portraits and the D700 was for everything else, including night shots, we were out there 15 hours..

[ROL]

The black and white in the Blad was for that now cliche include the frame look for the portraits...

I think even I can make that happen in PS.

[Vaughn]

I never actually weighed my pack when I would go 11 days down in the Grand Canyon with the 4x5. I was afraid to! Ninety pounds give or take -- depended a lot on how much water I had to carry (dry camps required more water to be carried). Solo, so there is no splitting up any shared gear. Most of my meals required some soaking (no stove, no fires = no hot food). And I try to eat well, so too much weight in food (no freeze-dried food). My 4x5 camera with the one lens weighed 2.5 pounds, but I managed to carry another 20 pounds of camera gear somehow. After 11 days and hiking out of the Canyon, it seemed my pack still weighed 40 to 45 pounds! I do not think any of my gear was "light-weight"!

This was pre-carbon fiber, my pod (Gitzo 300 and a Gitzo Ballhead #2) was around 7 or 8 pounds. Usually 5 to 6 holders, meter, changing bag, a couple film boxes, mini-repair kit, darkcloth, small notebook, day pack for the camera gear.

Depending on where I was going, I might be able to substitute a shoulder bag for the daypack and carry the camera on the pod. But the Canyon pretty much dictated a pack to keep my hands free, and if I could afford it, take a few pounds off the tripod/head combo by going CF. If I can cut my food weight by half, take twice that weight off my middle, perhaps I can even figure a way to get the 5x7 into the wierderness before I hit 60.

These last few years I have just been taking the Rolleiflex and a very small Gitzo pod and cheap ballhead. It has been a lot of fun. But then I started with a Rollei, so I'll probably go out with one!

[ROL]

Ninety pounds give or take -- depended a lot on how much water I had to carry (dry camps required more water to be carried)... Most of my meals required some soaking (no stove, no fires = no hot food).

I guess one might say you were "soaker" then, for carrying water for that?!? ;)

[Vaughn]

I guess one might say you were "soaker" then, for carrying water for that?!? ;)

I also had sprouts growing as I hiked. Nothing like a handful of sprouts as a snack in thirsty weather! A typical dinner was sprouts, tabbouleh (which needed to be soaked several hours), hummus and cheese in a piece of pita bread, breakfast was granola and lunch some sort of food bar, jerky (home made), and cheese. Snacks: gorp, dried fruit, nuts, dates (nice to suck on the pit while hiking) and a little chocolate for desserts. I think I would start off with 3 pounds of chedder cheese. The jerky would be thin slices of flank steak soaked in soy sauce, then cooked at the lowest oven temp for a couple hours. I would also soak some dried fruit over-night to have with breakfast (dried fruit without any sulfur used, much tastier).

I did not mind carrying soaking food -- when having a dry camp, the more water, the better! Those couple of cups of water the tabbouleh mix was soaking in was nice to have! And when well soaked, it has a nice wet, minty flavor to it. When I can have fires, it is nice to have a little more variety, though!

[Drew Wiley]

My style as a kid was not to carry food at all, except a little emergency jerky. I'd count on
fish and foraging. Sometimes didn't even take a sleeping bag, just an oversize poncho which served as both raingear and emergency tent. I figured if the Indians did it, I could
too - but those nites at 12000 ft could get pretty bitter. The fact was, I was poor and
couldn't have even afforded decent gear. But I did have a little early Pentax. Large format
changed all that. But now I'm looking to not only things like carbon fiber to lighten my load,
but to all those special lightweight innovations like freeze-dried water that they sell at the camping stores nowadays. Eventually they'll have some special sauce that you pour on
your cell phone and it temporarily swells up to become an 8x10, complete with a digital
darkcloth.

[Kodachrome25]

I think even I can make that happen in PS.

There are some lines I don't cross...;-)
Besides, the subjects loved the hand made prints...