A Tick and the Rogue River Trail

[Jim57]

4-25-18 to 4-29-18

Day 1 Graves Creek to Bunker Creek
Day 2 to Kelsey Creek
Day 3 to Tucker Flats
Day 4 to Camp Tacoma
Day 5 to Foster Bar

Hi Everyone, Jim57 and my bro in law Petr did a nice easy going? 5 day trip. This is our third time in 4 years. What better thing to do in April?
We knew what we heading into. 1 hot day, 2 sunny days, 2 days of wet. Poison oak and ticks. Yeah! We used Galice Resort for a shuttle.

The first day was hot hot hot. Bunker Creek was a great place to finish the day the day. Should have consumed a lot more water than we did. Catching up was fairly easy. The trail was in great shape. We got really good at being poison oak dodgers. As the trip progressed we only found one tick each other. Had a nice camp fire. The heat did me in. I skipped dinner and had a franz cherry pie then slept. Peter ate leftover pizza.

A cooler second day. Two years ago we didn't stay at Kelsey Creek . . . tick city. The camp area has been cleaned up of the large wood piles. No ticks. Great place and a nice fire.

The third day to Tucker Flats. We saw rafts, canoes, and kayaks on the river. We met several backpackers along the way. Tucker Flats is a great. Picnic tables, outhouses and bear proof garbage cans. After dinner, Peter and I walked up the trail along Mule Creek. OMG!! Inspired and awed by what we found! A bridge right on top of where the east and west fork of mule creek converges to form mule creek. Narrow deep slots. Beauty!!! Didn’t bring the camera. I hold the memory in my heart.

The forth day . . . on to camp Tacoma. It rained on and off all day. Rain gear on and rain gear off . . . over and over again. We got to camp and started setting up our tents. The we got hammered by rain from then till morning. Glad we brought extra rope and a tarp to set up a little semi dry area.

The fifth day it was more rain then less rain and finally toward the end the rain stopped. Got to the Foster Bar and we thoroughly checked ourselves for ticks. We changed our cloths and were off to Gold Beach for awesome pizza. Up the coast to Portland.

I sprayed my clothes with permethrin before the trip. I wore long sleeves and pants for most of the trip. I’m at home now with poison oak on five different places on my body. I’ve had it worse. What's going on? Does it soak thru our clothes?
Peter checked himself thoroughly before he changed his cloths for ticks. Got home and found a tick embedded near his waste. The theory is maybe off the pack in the back of the car or off of his cloths during changing. Darn! He has a lot of poison oak too.

Also, the trail conditions on the first half of the trip was awesome. Only a few trees and land slides to deal with. The second half was challenging. At least 50 (yes 50) obstacles to cross on the trail. Mostly trees, branches, and slides. Hopefully going to get cleaned out soon.
Amazing people on the trail . . . We met three women runners. On our third day they ran by us. They we running from graves creek to Illahe in one day. The next day they ran back. Quite a feat indeed!

We met a hiker wearing shorts on the trail wearing shorts. At least 10 tick bites on his ankles.

Love this hike.

With the lack of gorge access, Peter and I are doing more biking now. Banks to Vernonia makes for a nice day.

We took extra cooking gas this trip. Hot cocoa/coffee in the morning and cocoa at night made for an extra nice trip.

[retired jerry]

Tick not swollen with blood so maybe it imbedded while driving home. On the other hand, he could have missed it the first inspection.

I got two ticks there a month ago

That looks like a bulls eye pattern - Lyme disease - except probably not because it wasn't imbedded long enough

[Jim57]

The forth day when we set up camp the rain came down and down and down. With all of that run off dumping into the creeks, the water didn't look so good. I use a msr system. Scoop up 4 liters of water in a dirty bag . . . hang it on a tree limb and gravity flow through a filter into a clean bag. I add a little bleach for extra protection. Well the filter plugged up right away. The cheap plastic backflow syringe had a hairline crack in it and wasn't working so well. Darn! Peter couldn't use his steripen the water wasn't clear enough. My backup filter is a little sawyer squeeze. I took that filter and plugged it into my msr tubing and yippee. . . 4 liters of water. First time I had a scenario where I needed my backup filter and I was ready. When I got home and backflushed that filter, I was amazed at the brown water that was coming out.

[Jim57]

By the end of the second day, Peter had quite an abrasion on his back where his pack was rubbing. I must admit, I probably bring too much stuff in my pack. But the cleansing wipes, ointment, and bandaids came in real handy.

[Jim57]

Not being able to go on most of my favorite day hikes, I had to come up with a few more options to stay in shape. . . bought some used bicycles. Commuting by bike to work now. A couple of weeks ago I did 24 miles on the banks-vernonia rails to trails.

[Petr]

Tick bite victim here: My Neuroretinitis (blurred vision) has resolved, with decreased fatigue. This supports the hypothesis that I had a mild bout of Cat Scratch Fever as one of the suite of diseases carried by the tick that got me in the car on the way home!. The adult tick would have picked up this disease from a cougar and passed it to me. We have not tested the tick because these ticks live for years in food rich areas like the Rogue River and end up carrying many diseases, most of which are NOT transmitted. Ticks kill 20 times more people in the USA than short lived mosquitoes. I obviously do not have any of the rapidly fatal diseases so NOT taking the risky doxycycline appears to have been a good call. I may still have some immunity from the new strain of relapsing fever discovered by the team that tested me 40 years ago (I was very ill for 2 months). Relapsing fever or other diseases may yet appear as it is now day 14 in the presentation period (3 to 18 days). Poison oak has complicated the entire situation, which is finally resolving, no new rash last 2 days! It was a great trip, just do tecnu washes often, especially after touching anything like downed trees blocking the trail. The rash and itching first appeared on my penis, which obviously I touched every time I urinated. All the other rashes I could tie to these two sites (front of right hand fingers, penis). I never had any on my arms or legs, which were bare most of the time. That's how careful I was! The poison oak often hung over or across the trail. I would yell "limbo" often to Jim57 when I was leading.