lizs vs. the MUTANT FLIES!!!! TR

“I did a quick, overnight hike at Yellow River State Forest last Saturday.

As I left the backpacker’s parking lot around 4:30 p.m. and hiked up the trail toward Camp John Schultz, I realized, oh yeah, rain had moved through the area in the morning. There were no other backpackers. And I was amazed the bugs were not bad.

I wore shorts, forgetting the trail does grow in some in the summer (our TT trips are always in spring or fall when the trails are fairly clear). Winding through nettles leaning onto the trail, I tried to fend them off with my trekking poles. But I figured they got me in my knee area.

Soon, I had intense itching and pain back of my left knee. Per usual, I just clamped the jaw and hiked… trying the old “mind over matter.”

Finally, I thought, holy sheeyat, I have to scratch it. It itches too bad and hurts!!!

I look down at the problem area… and then it got weird!!!! There was some MUTANT NINJA BLACK FLY (I guess??!?! Maybe a small bat????!?) stuck to my leg!!! It was freakin’ HUGE!!!

I screamed!! With a trekking pole, I momentarily chased it away.

Looking down, there were four bloody spots on my leg. FOUR BLOODY SPOTS!!! WTF??!?!?

http://community.webshots.com/photo/120205253/425417325ueWJJQ

I almost ran the rest of the way to Camp John Schultz, where I would look for bug spray to put on. The mutant Ninja black fly continued to try to suck my blood!!!!

Breathing and hyper – and wondering just what the hell that THING was out there, I finally got to the camp. My 100 percent Deet was nowhere to be seen. I had to use little citronella towelettes purchased a year and a half ago. So I did. And smelled like my horses when I used to wipe fly repellant on them.

The rest of the trip was fairly noneventful. Mr. Jose Cuervo margarita helped me calm down when I set up camp at Heffern Hill Camp. (It was leftover in my Nalgene from the trip out west a month ago, but heck, it’s alcohol, right?? The would kill any nasty stuff attempting to breed in the Nalgene bottle, right?)

http://community.webshots.com/photo/425418026/425418026hFusYp

Got the fire going with handy-dandy little wax log thingees. I think five of them finally got the wet wood piled there to keep burning.

I read a first-person story in Outside mag and figured I could damn tootin’ certainly write something that good (thank you, Mr. Cuervo)

Saw a few shooting stars/meteors with the Perseid meteor shower around 3 a.m.

Hiked back out, went to Prairie du Chien to Cabela’s, and returned one of their Alaskan Guide ¾-length self-inflating pads. (For the second time, one of them leaked around the valve). Yippee! I was “in the system,” so got a store refund, as opposed to having to replace the item. (remember, I now have an Insul-mat).

So I got a National Geographic South Dakota TOPO mapping program in the Bargain Cave, cut from $100 to $50 (I see now the map as old as the hills – the Black Hills, LOL! – but it’s fun whatever).

Also got a Sea-to-Summit small dry bag. They are cheap as hell!! It was maybe 8 bucks. My sleeping bag will fit in it. Think it was maybe 8 L size??

I SPENT $10.01!!! LOL! :-)

Anyhoo… there ya go. I am waiting to see if any mutant Ninja maggots sprout from my four bloody leg wounds – which now look like scrapes. Luckily, they’ve only itched maybe once since the INCIDENT!!!

If I start sprouting wings and landing behind your knees, WATCH OUT!!!”

“You should read Parasite Rex by Carl Zimmer :)”

“Tubas and now mutant flies......Lizs you are having a bad week. Sound like you need to retreat back to the bunker with the pink thingie and lay low for awhile.”

“Were they horse flies?

”

“I dunno. It seemed like it was at least an inch long or a little over. It seemed all black, from what I saw. The wings on that thing might look similar.

YRSF is a big horse riding area, if that's the type of area horseflies like!”

“That sounds like a mule fly. They cut a divot out of your skin and sponge up the blood that surfaces. They inject a pretty potent anticoagulant, too.”

“Maggots sprouting from her knee?

Ewwwwwwwwwwwwww, lizs was impregnated by an insect.”

“I just read this. ewwwwwww!!!

A horse-fly's bite can be very painful. Unlike insects that pierce the skin, horse-flies have mouthparts that work like miniature knives, which they use to slash open the skin with a scissor-like motion. This causes the blood to seep out as the horse-fly licks it up. While some horse-flies are known to have venom, none is known to be dangerous to humans. When attacking humans, the flies generally prefer the head and upper body regions, going unnoticed until a bite is inflicted.

Horse-flies are most active in hot weather, mostly in summer and autumn during the daylight hours. Most species also prefer a wet climate, which makes it easier for them to breed.

Just looked at your link, LZ, same kinda stuff.


UGGHHHHHH!!! and OUCH!!!!!”

“Ask Pennsy or Adventurist about my encounter with deer flies (the horse fly's smaller cousin) a few summers ago. I had so many bits that my arms swelled up to twice their normal size.”

“I came out of the Daks one summer with a formerly white tee shirt that looked like it had brown polka dots all over it from the blood oozing from bug bites.

Damn suckers had FAA wing numbers!”

“WOW! I'd never run into such flies before!”

“These help combat them.

”

“I truly was horrified to look down and see four different blobs of blood!

LOL, cannons, huh?? Or artillery??”

“You have to load them with exploding flack shells. That way you don’t have to actually hit the little sh*ts to get a kill. The only down side is it sends your pack weight way up.”

“two of our campsites in Glacier had horse fly populations that were NASTY. Those bastages drew blood and HURT!

But they were slow and easy to kill !!! HAHAHAHAHA”

“I bought a leg hold mosquito trap from a store in Lake Placid one year, and the damn skeeters flew off with it.”

““two of our campsites in Glacier had horse fly populations that were NASTY. Those bastages drew blood and HURT!

But they were slow and easy to kill !!! HAHAHAHAHA”
Roam Around
2:40:50 PM
8/17/05

Ditto in Banff! Big, slow and stupid. I knocked off 21 of them in one sitting. B-) %$^#ing things!”

“Hmmm... I am trying to think if this thing was slow or not. Course, I was moving kind of fast and screaming and hyperventilating -- all at the same time! -- so I might not have noticed. :-)”

“Course, I was moving kind of fast and screaming and hyperventilating -- all at the same time! ...”
lizs
3:07:02 PM

What a Girly Girl!!! ;-)”

“A friend and I were setting up camp on the Current River in Missouri when he killed a horsefly that was chewing on him. This seemed to ENRAGE the other horseflies in the area and they started loudly dive-bombing him. We quickly dove inside the nearly set up tent to get away from them. The #&%!$ers slammed into the side of the tent for at least 10 minutes trying to get at us. I’ve never seen behavior like that before or since.”

“Jeez Vi, you're lucky they weren't slapping you upside the head. That is particuarly humiliating.”

“I can't confirm this, but I've heard that the deer and horse flies in the Adirondacks are known to fly off with people’s cats and small dogs.”