BigLoad
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Pancakes!
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Post by BigLoad on May 11, 2017 18:18:12 GMT -8
I've always paid attention to ants on the trail, especially in the desert. Sometimes what first looks like the best campsite for miles turns out to be an enormous ant farm. Usually that's obvious before I get a tent set up. Sometimes the ant situation is less apparent.
On a trip in April, I returned to my canyon basecamp after gathering water from a distant spring and hung my filter from a convenient juniper branch for the night. The next morning it went into my back for the next side trip. When the time came, I unrolled the water bag to find about 150 ants all over it. The juniper must have been their home, and they were attracted to the moisture. I brushed them all off, filled the bag with water and hung it to start filtering. Soon I saw the ants weren't just confined to the bag. They were now floating in all the hoses, having emerged from both the input and output ports of the main filter and the charcoal post-filter. It took about five liters of filtering and washing to get them all out before I could start getting water without ants in it.
Of course that meant there were a bunch of ants in my pack, too. However, their powerful attraction to moisture was the easiest way to solve that problem. By the time I was back in camp, nearly all of them had re-occupied the damp filter bag after I put in back in the pack. The whole thing repeated again to a much lesser degree the next day. I succeeded in not drinking any ants, just barely, and only tonight finished cleaning and disinfecting the filter. To my great surprise, there were no living ants left in my pack, and only a few dead ones. The attraction of the wet filter bag was universally overpowering.
Has anyone else had a memorably ant experience?
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foxalo
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Life is infinitely stranger than anything the mind could invent.---Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
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Ants
May 11, 2017 19:03:59 GMT -8
via mobile
Post by foxalo on May 11, 2017 19:03:59 GMT -8
Extra protein with your water?
Only "memorable" ant encounters are the ones I have when I accidentally step on their hidden mound and they decide to feast on my legs. Gotta love fire ants!
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desert dweller
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Ants
May 11, 2017 19:39:14 GMT -8
Post by desert dweller on May 11, 2017 19:39:14 GMT -8
I've never set up camp on top of a mound. But, have set one up near one without knowing it till the next morning. Ants and other small critters are the biggest reason I use a tent more often than not.
Once, near Walnut Spring in the Superstitions, I actually slept on top of the ground cloth without the tent. It was nice night. But, the next morning after looking around the camp, I saw at least a half dozen "funnel webs" made by spiders. Funnel webs are made by spiders who make them to cover the underground opening where they hang out. When I got home I looked up "funnel web" and found out that some of the most poisonous spiders in Australia made funnel webs. Glad I wasn't down under.
Funnel Web
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walkswithblackflies
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Post by walkswithblackflies on May 12, 2017 4:43:56 GMT -8
No stories on the trail. But when we were kids, we would several grab ants from nearby colonies and drag them along the ground to the other colony, leaving an invisible chemical trail. Then we'd watch the war ensue. I was a horrible child.
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davesenesac
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Ants
May 12, 2017 17:12:34 GMT -8
Post by davesenesac on May 12, 2017 17:12:34 GMT -8
Of course ants are just about everywhere one goes outdoors. On the list of unpleasant insects list most species rate near the bottom. Well at least all the ones I tend to encounter in California. They rarely bite unless one is hurting them say when one gets up a pant leg and becomes squished. Otherwise those in our mountains are not much a nuisance and don't seem to get into food sources.
The ancient highly evolved ant bodies tend to be exceptionally clean creatures given defenses against microbes and parasites. Thus when an ant crawls on this person and I can see it, no bother. In the Sierra Nevada the large black wood ants that colonize trees and down logs are like little mindless machines with instructions to travel over every square inch of terrain that ant bodies have not recently passed over and left a chemical trail. It is thus impossible to scare or prevent them from crawling everywhere including on ones body, up a pant leg, or inside a tent. If one gets in my tent I hunt them down, grab em gently between fingers and toss them out. I tell any novice backpackers that they will need to put up with ants occasionally crawling on them. When walking about on landscapes if I see them in my boot path will avoid stepping on them but reality is that we unintentionally step on myriad ants without knowing it.
David www.davidsenesac.com/2017_Trip_Chronicles/2017_Trip-Chronicles-0.html
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Ants
May 12, 2017 20:06:38 GMT -8
Post by autumnmist on May 12, 2017 20:06:38 GMT -8
Carpenter ants will bite, and their bite stings.
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texasbb
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Post by texasbb on May 12, 2017 20:23:28 GMT -8
...They rarely bite unless one is hurting them say when one gets up a pant leg and becomes squished. Didn't grow up around fire ants, did you? :^)
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rebeccad
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Post by rebeccad on May 12, 2017 20:50:26 GMT -8
Didn't grow up around fire ants, did you? :^) He was talking about the ants encountered in CA, and mostly in the Sierra. AFAIK, there aren't fire-ants here. But all of them tickle like crazy when they crawl on me, and I hate that they move into my house like the land belonged to them first or something.
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Post by JRinGeorgia on May 13, 2017 3:20:24 GMT -8
Several years ago I had an ant infestation in my car. They were crawling out of the air conditioning vents. I only got rid of them by spraying the floor of the garage around all four tires after I pulled the car in each time for about two straight weeks.
And plenty of encounters with fire ants when doing yard work. They're pretty small, but each bite feels like a match head against your skin.
Luckily never had a significant ant encounter on the trail.
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walkswithblackflies
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Ants
May 19, 2017 4:16:31 GMT -8
Post by walkswithblackflies on May 19, 2017 4:16:31 GMT -8
Carpenter ants will bite, and their bite stings. I would liken it more to a gnawing pinch. Nom-nom-nom. LOL!
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tigger
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Post by tigger on May 19, 2017 6:57:39 GMT -8
No nightmare ant stories...but don't get me started on fricken fracken yellow jackets. I think I am permanently scarred/terrified of ground nests.
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texasbb
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Ants
May 19, 2017 7:18:59 GMT -8
tigger likes this
Post by texasbb on May 19, 2017 7:18:59 GMT -8
Carpenter ants will bite, and their bite stings. I would liken it more to a gnawing pinch. Nom-nom-nom. LOL! That's not an ant... there's an ant. (With apologies to Mr. Dundee.)
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bass
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Ants
May 20, 2017 17:01:09 GMT -8
Post by bass on May 20, 2017 17:01:09 GMT -8
The Cherokee used ants and also wood ashes to flavour their food - just as we use pepper and other seasonings. The ants added tannic acid flavouring. They didn't have fire ants back then.
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Ants
May 20, 2017 18:28:01 GMT -8
Post by cloudwalker on May 20, 2017 18:28:01 GMT -8
I crawled through a nest of ants under a house once while I was doing plumbing work years ago. It's amazing how fast you can move on your belly to get out of a bad situation. Lucky for me they were only common black ants. I'm scratching now just thinking about it.
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texasbb
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Ants
May 20, 2017 19:28:26 GMT -8
Post by texasbb on May 20, 2017 19:28:26 GMT -8
It's amazing how fast you can move on your belly to get out of a bad situation. Ain't that the truth! Between numerous encounters with fire ants and one with a molting copperhead, I developed some dance moves that defy the laws of physics.
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