[silence]

We did a day hike in Eastern WA over the weekend and tried to be very careful about it .. including checking our clothes before getting back in the car. Still about 1 mile down the road I had one crawling up my neck. Robert then found one inside his pants crawling up his leg. Then when we got home we stripped down outside, and while showering Robert found another one on his hip .. ugh! I was telling our friend Dave Skinner about this yesterday at our Out of the Mist show .. and he said he's seen plenty of ticks on the Olympic Peninsula .. esp around Lake Crescent, and that even just recently a tick from that area tested positive for Lyme Disease

[boot up]

Don't forget to check in your belly button, if you have an inny. When I lived in tick country, that was a popular place for them to hide.

[silence]

yeah .. we used to live with ticks and rattlesnakes before moving here .. and were very happy to kiss them goodbye ... but knowing they are in the Olympics .. not too happy about! I thought I once saw one in our tent .. and dismissed it as some benign insect that looked like a tick

[Jetlag]

Spent last Tuesday afternoon at Group Health treating a half inch of necrosis around my latest deer tick encounter. They are nasty this year! Watch yourself if you're sport climbing on Fossil Rock anytime soon.

[Jimbo]

[IanB]

[ranger rock]

I picked up a tick near Lake Cushman this week. I found the tick on me at 4am today. My first tick ever, it was probably on me for 48 hours before I found it. It left a very red welt, my doc put me on antibiotics just in case. It was a deer tick, that's the kind that can carry Lyme disease.

tick-bite-right-after-removal

My dog got a tick on the Penninsula last year too. That was the first tick that I have ever seen. So yes, we do have them here, but they are not very plentiful. I suspect the numbers are growing.

[Elliott Haybaler]

Last week I spotted a tick crawling around on Stegosaurus Butte, at the rocky south-facing ledge. Several days later, pulled a tick off my 5 year old son's scalp (he'd rolled around in salal on Stegosaurus)....... but the day before we'd walked the new section of Pratt River Trail. So who knows exactly where the critter came from. Our pediatrician said the main problem with tick bites on children he's seen isn't the disease vector issue, but potential infection where the dirty bastards have set up shop.

[cefire]

Hiking today in the Gallatin Range (MT), I'd estimate between 15-20 on our clothes alone when we got back home. Probably picked about 10 off on the trail. Nothing seems embedded though after a careful inspection!

[More Cowbell]

In preparation for a trip to Scotland and the dreaded biting midges I am taking B1 supplements. B1 is also supposed to work for ticks. Today I was in tick country and none appeared. But I also applied Picaridin (the preferred midge repellant in the UK). So far so good.

[Slim]

There is an interesting article on ticks in this month's Outside magazine: http://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-adventure/science/Feeding-Frenzy.html

[ranger rock]

I just took Patches in for her summer hair cut and a tick check. We found two ticks on Patches last night. Today her groomer found another dozen on her. The groomers says this is the worst year she has ever seen here for ticks. Patches lives on theOlympic Pennisula and she has not been off it this year. I think she picked up all these ticks near Lake Cushman.

[Jetlag]

Yes, I would have to agree, in our area at least this is the worst tick year in the 33 I've lived here.

[The Angry Hiker]

I currently have at least 17 ticks on various parts of my body, including one that latched onto my left testicle during a Heather Lake hike in '88. I named him "Henry" and sometimes he sings to me at night.

[silence]

check out wta's talk about ticks .. funny we did all those things .. except the bathtub trick .. and still i wake up in the middle of the night 2 weeks l8r thinking a tick survived it all and got me .. even funnier is that i spent most of my first 30 years of life in tick country and never did any of that stuff .. except pick ticks off my dogs .. http://www.wta.org/signpost/hiking-in-tick-country