Angleworm Trail, Superior National Forest

I chose mid-August on purpose for our trip to Ely because all my research indicated that the mosquito season should be done by then. It seemed like that was true for the first two days we were here, and then it was like someone had put out a memo that I had arrived and now they won't leave me alone! When I was camping at Kohler-Andrae I stopped at their natural store in town and picked up a completely useless botanical mixture that was no help whatsoever. Last year I used the Repel Lemon Eucalyptus spray but it didn't take long for that to start giving me headaches even though I sprayed it below my knees only. For this trip I picked up Repel Natural which seemed to give off less odor, however, it only seems to scare away about half of the mosquitoes.  I've been on 3 hikes since we got here, and been swatting away on every one. When we were kayaking at Perrot State Park we saw some people wearing mosquito netting clothing. That's my next line of defense!

Yesterday we went for a drive along the Echo Trail which is a county road through the wilderness area north of Ely. We drove 52 miles out and then 52 miles back, most of it at 25 mph on a gravel road.  It was a hot day and we thought a little air conditioned drive would be the way to go. We saw a young fox dash across the road, but other than that all we saw was this deer.

After hours stuck in the truck
I begged and begged until Wayne
agreed to stop at the Angleworm hiking trail.
We both needed a restroom break,
so we were happy to see this sign.

 



This is what we found at the end of the trail!
Like Wayne said, can you imagine coming
down and unexpectedly finding someone
sitting on that??  Not wanting to be the ones
caught sitting on that, we opted for nearby
bushes instead.  Judge us if you want.

After taking care of our necessary business
we headed down the Angleworm trail.
We only made it about a mile before the
mosquitoes found me and we had to turn
back.  Wayne finds this highly amusing since
he hasn't been wearing any repellant and
hasn't been bitten once.  He's usually
a chigger magnet (not to be confused with
chick magnet) so he's enjoying watching
me be the one to suffer instead.  It looked like
a nice trail, but it'll have to wait for another day
when I'm bundled up in netting or it's too cold
for the mosquitoes.