jack t ripper wrote:
What Anthro says. I the summer in the Sierras you can absolutely get massive swarms of mosquitos even above 10,000 feet.
The minute you stop or the breeze stops they will be on you like vultures. I was fly-fishing for golden trout above Saddlebag Lake (near Tioga Pass) at over 11,000 feet and got bit so bad I had to retreat. I had a hat, long sleeves, neck cover and about 1 gallon of DEET and the little f****** got under my sunglasses and sucked all the blood out of my temporal arteries. There was still snow on the ground too.
They are truly impressive, those Sierra mountain mosquitoes. It is not that _everywhere_ in the Sierra's is swarming with mosquitoes 24/7 any time the temperature is above 13-degree C. You'll have long stretches where they don't bother you. Middle of the day, in the sun, if you are not right next to a stagnant pond, there might only be one or two that buzz around within a 30 minute period. But dusk and dawn, and especially with low breeze and near bodies of standing water, they are like a plague.
We camped in this campsite that is past Vogelsang peak on the route from Tuolomne down to the valley. Because we cooked on a fuel stove, they were a pest all through cooking. So many on your shirt sleeves and face netting that they looked like dirt. Had to go in and out of the tent like it was an airlock. Without covering up there, you'd literally just die of mosquito bite poisoning.