Kamikaze Bugs in the Belknap Range

I forgot the bug spray. I thought it was in the truck when I left the house yesterday and failed to double-check. Why, oh why, didn’t I double-check?

For the better part of the six miles it takes to do the Mack—Klem loop, ascending two of the twelve major peaks in the Belknap Range, I was hounded by a vast array of insects that were all fixated on one singular mission: to annoy yours truly.

My Assailants

Fortunately, there weren’t too many mosquitoes—only an army of black flies hovering a few inches behind my head for most of the trek. And on at least two occasions, I was assaulted by a small fly or midge of some sort, who hurtled its body into my nose, where it met an immediate demise and a rude expulsion.

Can someone explain this to me? Does someone know how this happened in the evolutionary development of no-see-ums? What is going on here? Do you think one midge says to the rest of them, “Hold on a second guys. I’m gonna go fly up this dude’s nose, and while I’m doing my kamikaze bit, distracting him, you guys come around his backside and chomp on those feasty looking calves. Bring the horseflies and skeeters with you, too. If I don’t make it, sing a song for me because tonight, I’ll be dining in Valhalla.”

Or maybe the kamikaze midge is a dad or mom, making sure their offspring gets a meal. Why else would they go right up the nose like that? To bite my nose hairs? And yet, without fail, every time I’m out on a hike in hot, humid weather, a couple of them risk it all to fly right up my nose. Sometimes it’s not even my nose they attack, but the inner corners of my eyes, where they get stuck and then swallowed up by my eyelids. What’s that all about? Where in their brains do they say to themselves, “you know what, I’m gonna hit this dude in the eyeball and then I’m gonna get my body jammed up under his eyelid so that I never see the light of day again.” Midges, in my experience, are idiots.

It was hot and buggy on the Red Trail

Respect for the Deerfly

The only six-legged predator I met yesterday that I have some mild respect for is the deerfly. Especially the ones I only seem to see around Lake Winnipesaukee and the surrounding forests. Have you seen these guys?

I used to think they were horseflies, but they’re not your typical greenheads. Brown and mottled, they have wings shaped like a hang glider and know how to bite quickly and flee the scene before I swat them into oblivion. Where did these guys come from? They’re ruthless. And smart. Totally unlike skeeters, who are pretty dumb. You might have to let a mosquito bite you to get him, but once they sink their needle-noses in, that’s all she wrote. They are too distracted by their lust for blood.

The Lake Winnipesaukee deerfly, on the other hand, is another matter. He is a master of the hit and run, quickly landing blows and getting out of there before catastrophe strikes. He is the Muhammad Ali of lake bugs. A gifted and nimble adversary. He is also, strictly speaking, not a he but a she. It turns out that the boys are nicer and don’t draw blood. They go feast on honey and nectar while the females go looking for flesh to feed on. Interesting.

And when the female deerfly combines her efforts with the kamikaze midge, who has no regard for its own safety, it’s a pretty fierce combination. Relentless, really. Fortunately, though, the deerfly does have one weakness: extreme heat. Not to steer you wrong, they do love the heat. They thrive on it. But they seem to have a breaking point. When it gets too muggy—too sticky—they slow down. They struggle to anticipate the deft cuts of my ninja hands, and this proved true yet again on a steamy afternoon up Mount Mack and Mount Klem. No one was safe.

Intertrail Trolls

Usually, I disregard bugs and simply try to run faster on the trail to avoid them, but yesterday’s escorts were a strange lot. Outside of the biting deerflies and kamikaze midges, everyone else just kind of followed me. Even when I stopped for a water break, they all pulled up their reins and just floated around, waiting to see what I’d do next. Not too many bites.

It reminded me of internet trolls, who not only waste the time of the people they are harassing, but their own time as well. What is the hovering fly after, if it doesn’t even land on me for a chew? Help me understand! Just when I think I’m beginning to get a read on how things act in nature, everyone changes their playlist. Maybe the heat was just getting to them all.

In the Mountains

Sometimes I share something about a trail I found, or something I discovered in the mountains. But today I just felt like talking about bugs. For more posts about mountains (and usually the positive experiences they bring), you can check them out here.