One fine June, I went backpacking in the Adirondacks with two of my sons. We hiked in, set up camp, and went to bed. The next day we did some climbing. It was a good day for blackflies. They were horrible. There was no wind. The blackflies sort of hung around my head.... biting... biting.... even on the summits.
That evening, back at camp, I noticed that the white hat I had worn was rather blood stained. "I've had worse.", I thought.
We went to bed early. Upon awakening the next morning, I was unable to open my eyes. My sons looked at me, and started laughing. I believe "deformed" was the word they chose to describe my face. It looked like this:
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I had a tough time hiking out. I was able to hold one eye open so that I could see. Rock hopping across streams was awkward without the benefit of the depth perception given by the second eye.
The second eye didn't open for a few days. My two sons hardly got a bite. I used the DEET, they didn't. They used nothing. I guess I just taste better.
Lest you think I always look as in the picture above, you can see some normal pictures of me with my half beard , or a picture of me with an iced up beard from winter cycling
Pete Hickey / pete@mudhead.uottawa.ca