Cautionary tale from off the trail
An electric shock lit up my left ankle. A split second later, a hot jab pierced my right calf. Then in succession, it felt like an ice pick stabbed a toe, ankle and calf.
Not again, you think. Yep, again: The bees are swarming and stinging, and it’s like being stuck by a cattle prod.
All you can think of is to run and look for a lake to jump in. Since there is usually no lake, a bush might do. The bees have marked your scent and will keep nailing you as long as they think you remain a threat.
Like a lot of people who love wild places, I occasionally take it the extra mile in summer by heading off trail, tracking game routes or venturing to lakes, meadows, streams and mountaintops that don’t have trails to them.
Most of the time, it’s a trek to the wildest side of life. Other times, it’s more like a trip to the torture chamber. Over the years, I have stepped on bee hives in the ground, kicked a wasp nest or somehow stirred up the hornets.
This year alone, I’ve been stung about 25 times in three encounters. The latest was during a walk in Tevas and shorts, not my typical trail wear, Merrell and Kuhl. My son Jeremy hiked the Pacific Crest Trail last year and most of it was in Tevas, he said, and advised how they can toughen up the bottom of your feet for anything.
On a warm mountain morning last week, I was walking through a meadow of blooming clover toward a break in the forest when the bees attacked. The background noise was like a small engine. I let out a howl, and then after repeated stings and a few more howls, ran from the meadow trying to find defensible cover. In the surrounding forest, the birds stopped chirping and squirrels ran up the trees.
My first thought was that wasps had got me, as happened earlier this spring, because they sting over and over. But upon inspection, it looked like my calves, ankles and feet had little slivers in them. Those were the stingers.
The bees, wasps and hornets are having field days this summer. All the blooming wildflowers and vibrant vegetation in the high country have made it perfect for them.
I’ve had a lot of encounters. In the Sierra foothills, I was trying to get a photograph of a doe with two newborn fawns when I brushed up against an oak tree for camera stability and got lit up like a Christmas tree. Turns out the bees had a hive in the hollow of a tree. In the Fall River Valley, near the Island Lake access, the wasps got me a half dozen times.
The first time I got nailed bad in wilderness I was freeclimbing up a remote forested canyon in the Trinity Alps, when I planted my hand on top of a bee nest in the ground. They swarmed me and replicated a Taser experience.
If you’re near civilization, applying ice right away helps keep the swelling down. Excedrin, with its combination of acetaminophen and aspirin, seems to help, too (not advised for youngsters, though). Doctors say taking Benadryl can help, but, in the wilderness, I don’t like how it takes the edge off and can sap your energy. Some use snakebite kits on stings and say it helps.
Anybody who is allergic to bee stings should take their doctor’s warnings, of course, always wear a warning bracelet and keep their hypo kit with epinephrine with them.
Over the years, I’ve traveled a few miles on motorcycles and have been stung out riding, too, usually on the neck or arms. Riders have told me stories about panic moments when a wasp ended up inside their helmet.
The worst story I’ve heard was about a guy who was cruising across the Great Plains, no helmet, taking in the pungent scent of fresh-cut alfalfa in summer, when a grasshopper went up his nose so far he couldn’t get it out. Turned out the guy had to have surgery.
Hey, maybe these occasional bee stings aren’t so bad, after all.
Salmon attack
The next month is shaping up as the peak of the salmon season out the Golden Gate. The Wacky Jacky had a trip last week with 25 salmon for 13 people, one short of two-fish limits for all aboard. Field scout Brian Murphy said it would have been easy limits, except that a boatload of newcomers didn’t know three keys: 1. When you hook a fish, keep your rod tip up; 2. Keep reeling, no slack; 3. Face and follow your fish, no angles.
Foxes everywhere
Wildlife cam: My motionactivated wildlife cam, which is set up along a wildlife corridor that adjoins open space, has picked up more foxes than any other wildlife (except wild turkeys). The highest numbers of captures have been at nights during bright moons.
South S.F.: Near the national cemetery, Gary Allard sighted a gray fox that ran from his neighbor’s yard, across the street, and into his side yard.
Castro Valley: At Five Canyons, high school pal Lawrie
Molton reported that, while his wife, Avra, drove up the road, a fox crossed right in front of the car. “Avra was able to brake and come up about 10 feet in front of the fox,” he wrote. “The fox stopped in the lane directly in front of the car, stared at it, and then continued in the original direction.”
Vallejo: At Glen Cove, the bald eagle that has been hanging out this summer has attracted a fair amount of local attention, and in the process, a gray fox has been sighted many times in the area as well. “We have seen a gray fox multiple times cross our fenced backyard,” wrote
Larry Scanlon. “I have a pic of a fox peeking over our fence before climbing over. Of course, we have had the usual menagerie of critters (skunk, raccoon, possum, wild turkey).”
Mount Tam closure
On the flank of Mount Tamalpais, Bolinas-Fairfax is closed in two spots, at Azalea Hill and Ridgecrest, by a landslide. The best projection, according to the Marin Municipal Water District, is that it will be reopened in early fall.
Letter of the week
A few laughs: “My good buddy, John Pellizzer ,andI fished Juniper Lake (in Lassen Volcanic National Park) over a July 4 weekend vacation. Beautiful lake, nice slope, dropoffs, trees for shade and we were sure it would produce fish. We changed lures for hours, shore fishing, and we were sure if we waded out farther we would hit something. Hours later, downtrodden and with disappointed wives, we checked your guidebook that we didn’t have with us!! The phrase “absolutely no fish” made us laugh so hard!!!” — Paul Adams