Proposed Title: Spray away trouble with sunscreen and bug spray
Summer is here and the hiking is easy. As we find ourselves spending more time outdoors, our exposure to the elements increases as well. As we hike, we need to protect ourselves from these elements.
Since the skin is the biggest organ in the human body, let’s start with protecting your skin from the sun. Hollywood has glamorized the cowboy of the west with his weather beaten skin, but I think most of us would like to try and avoid getting crow’s feet and wrinkles on our faces due to overexposure to the sun. As far as I know, skin like a catcher’s mitt is not a desirable characteristic of beauty in our current culture, so take the time to generously apply sunscreen to your face, ears, neck, arms, legs, and everywhere else where your skin is exposed to the rays of the sun.
Wearing a hat protects you from the sun as well. It tends to keep you cooler on hot days and cuts down on the glare from the bright sunshine. And speaking of glare, let’s not forget your eyes. Sunglasses are a must at altitude to protect your eyes from damaging UVA rays.
Wearing lightweight, loose-fitting clothing can help protect you from the sun as well. Do not forget to apply sunscreen to the parts of the body that you reveal when you remove the bottom portion of your field pants or roll up your sleeves.
Just when you are feeling comfortable on being protected from one element, another one rears it annoying head. Insects, or bugs as they are more commonly called, can make your hiking experience a living hell.
Imagine hiking on a hot day with a high mountain lake as your destination, when upon arriving at the lake, you are greeted by a swarm of annoying bugs. Without bug spray to protect you, your relaxing lunch turns into a twitching, itching, swatting event that can ruin your hike.
Bug spray is a must because these little buggers are persistent. They will follow you down the trail. They will battle the wind to bite you. And they just might be waiting for you to come along and either fall on you or crawl up your shorts while you are sitting on that comfortable log in the shade on the side of the trail.
Yes, bugs wage psychological warfare on us hikers. They lie in wait in all the most comfortable places on the trail. They wait in the shade for an unsuspecting hiker to come along. They wait by streams as we try and cool ourselves off or soak our feet. And they love to wait until we are just about to take that perfect picture and then ouch, son-of-a-gun, what the heck just bit me?! All I can say is I hope your camera has a motion blur setting.
A final word on lathering up with sunscreens and bug spray and that is some people don’t like all that stuff on their skin. It makes them sweat, smell weird, and feel dirty. Newsflash, you can take a shower when you get home from your hike and wash all that protection off and you won’t have sunburned skin and itchy bumps to deal with either.
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