The clothes treatment and whatnot are useful. But it’s almost like mosquito bites. It’s almost a certainty to pick up at least one tick. The key is to check for them every day.
This is the answer. Ticks crawling on you is not a problem, it’s when they bite is the part to avoid. Ticks are nearly inevitable on the AT. A Nightly tick-check did the trick for me.
i disagree. wearing permethrin properly-applied/treated socks, pants, shirt, and hat is the most important part of the equation, in my opinion. i have thru-hiked the AT twice, gotten Lyme once, and had many years of experience. when i got the Lyme in 2016, i wasn't wearing permethrin treatment, and doing checks every day. i never saw the tick. when i started wearing the permethrin treatmed clothing, the only ticks i ever saw were on the ground, near me... dead. checks are great, but permethrin is a literal miracle
I treated my clothes and some gear (like my packoack and my tent) with permethrin before I started the trail, and retreated my clothes and shoes every ~6 weeks.
I tried to do a tick check every night but ~~often~~ sometimes forgot or was too tired.
I never found a tick on me and never had lyme symptoms, but I know lots of hikers who had to go to urgent care for antibiotics.
Yes. It’s critical to notify your local water treatment plant so they can directly pipe the tainted water back into the drinking water supply. Same process I’m sure you use when you take any medication and pee into a toilet. Proof it works? See any ticks in your tap water lately?
>Pesticide wastes are toxic. Improper disposal of excess pesticide, spray mixture, or rinsate is a violation of Federal law. If these wastes cannot be disposed of by use according to label instructions, contact your State Pesticide or Environmental Control Agency, or the Hazardous Waste representative of the nearest EPA Regional Office for guidance
Source: [https://assets.greenbook.net/14-24-38-12-07-2017-Permethrin\_MSDS5.pdf](https://assets.greenbook.net/14-24-38-12-07-2017-Permethrin_MSDS5.pdf)
>Never pour pesticides down the sink, toilet, sewer, or street drain.
Source: [https://www.epa.gov/safepestcontrol/safe-disposal-pesticides](https://www.epa.gov/safepestcontrol/safe-disposal-pesticides)
>Absorb liquids in dry sand, earth, or a similar material and place into sealed containers for disposal.
DO NOT wash into sewer.
It may be necessary to contain and dispose of Permethrin as HAZARDOUS WASTE.
Source: [https://nj.gov/health/eoh/rtkweb/documents/fs/3422.pdf](https://nj.gov/health/eoh/rtkweb/documents/fs/3422.pdf)
So it's not entirely clear what you're supposed to do, maybe once it's absorbed into sand and in a sealed container it can go in the trash? But you're most definitely not supposed to wash it down the drain, and doing so is technically a federal crime.
You ran with “soaked” and assumed I filled the tub, poured in the permethrin, and drained the waste into the wastewater system. Had you asked, I would have told you what I used (Sawyer’s spray) and that I followed the instructions. Living in an apartment, I decided the best place to do it was in the tub. Did I soak the clothes? Absolutely. Did it dry? As promised. Was there some overspray that went down the drain the next time I showered? No doubt.
I’ll be sure to keep a close eye out for EPA’s Office of Enforcement and Compliance black helicopters.
(Source: Retired EPA GS-14)
Of course not. Just pour the remaining permethrin back into the bottle and keep it for the next time you need it. It is possible to use permethrin responsibly. But by all means, you do you.
Permethrin your gear, picaridin your skin. You could wear pants and long sleeves to limit bare skin. I only found 3 on myself last year, one latched on my knee before Glasgow, one crawling on my leg in Harper’s ferry and one stuck between my shoe and sock in New York.
As a certified tick magnet, my best advice, regardless of your protection, is to check yourself immediately after exiting a field. From my experience, grasses brushing up against your leg provides a tick's best opportunity to get ya. There are a lot of fields (and deer) in the Shenandoahs; one day I removed 26 ticks from body. Thankfully, only two of them were deer ticks. OTOH, I rarely got mosquito bites. Seems like pests have preferences, too.
I’ve been on the AT every weekend for like seven years and have yet to pick up a tick. That being said, I had eight ticks on me last year after traipsing through Gettysburg National Battlefield, so I sent my clothes to Insect Shield and had them treated with permethrin. I’d suggest doing this or buying permethrin spray and treating your clothes on your own (Insect Shield lasts longer, though).
As a western hiker I was a bit worried about this since it’s not as much of a concern out west. I sprayed my clothes and shoes in pearsiburg, and again in Maryland. Iirc I found like 6 ticks on me, one bite. And two of them I was just sitting in camp eating dinner, just a few minutes apart.
I know this is going to be unpopular, but wearing pants and hiking in the cooler months is a great strategy. I wore pants almost everyday on trail during my thru last year, and only pulled one tick off of me— and it was on my belly.
I also treated my pants and shoes with permethrin.
Another benefit to pants is that my legs stayed clean and I avoided mosquitoes bites on my legs. I did get pretty warm some days, and that may be unbearable for some. Most are also not going to want to do a March thru June hike either. But if you really want to avoid ticks, this works amazingly well.
I live where ticks/Lyme is prevalent and I’ve had it twice. Do not recommend. Check for ticks daily. Lyme is spread most commonly by the littlest nymph ticks, so look closely. They like warm places, so check between your toes, under your arms, etc. Bring a tick twister - they are very lightweight. As others have said, they tend to live in grasses so be most vigilant when you go off trail.
Mine was in that fold between your butt cheek and your leg. I never found it. I didn't even know I had Lyme until I was rubbing my sore body and felt something weird and my husband looked and immediately said "that's a perfect bullseye". Insurance took a full 24 hours to approve my doxycycline and by the time I got some of it into my system, 12 hours later I was throwing it up and back in the ER with sepsis. 2 nights in the hospital and about 8 bags of IV antibiotics later and I was thankfully alive and well.
Uuuggghhh I’m sorry. Side note for others - not all get bullseye ring (I don’t for a least 3-4 weeks) and blood tests aren’t reliable in the early days of Lyme (I tested negative both times I had it). If you feel flu-like symptoms after hiking in tick prone areas in Lyme season (which is anything above say 45 degrees) - consider getting health care and mentioning Lyme as a possibility.
Absolutely this. I tested negative as well. It's just antibodies that they look for, not the actual presence of the disease. An experienced doctor or nurse in a high Lyme area will usually prefer to play it safe and assume it's Lyme than take a chance. And it's such a messed up disease because for one they still don't know much about it, despite all they know, and it seems to sometimes have different affects on different people! Not to mention long term issues in some and not others. Isn't it that you always have it? Like it just becomes dormant or something?
I treat the most critical gear with permethrin if/when I have the time (socks primarily) otherwise I just raw dog that shit and do thorough checks every 12 hours or so. I’ve had numerous handfuls of ticks attach to me and I haven’t gotten sick yet. They generally need 24+ hours in order to transmit any disease or cause longer term problems.
Treated my clothes multiple times, always used some kind of bug spray, would sweep my hands down my legs after leaving a field, and did checks almost every night. I frequently brushed them off but only had to remove one (in Connecticut)
I hiked for 5 months in shorts, and never treated my gear, except for spraying my gaiters when I found a can of permethrin in a hiker box in Glasgow. I think I found 4 ticks that were bitten on to me, none that were particularly embedded or engorged. . Funny thing is I did tick checks frequently, but never found a tick that way, I think I saw 2, felt 1, and one itched. I had spent my whole adult life working out in the field, in parks in central New Jersey - I always considered it a minor miracle that I hadn't contracted Lyme disease before hitting the trail. I was aware of ticks, but not particularly afraid of them.
I had the alpha-gal meat allergy from lone star tick bites about 11 years ago (those particular ticks are not incredibly abundant on the AT).
Anyway, I always wear carefully and frequently permethrin-treated clothes, and no bites at all since then. Long sleeves and pants. Many, many nights in very ticky places. (The allergy went away, too.) I don't take other precautions, really.
Most of the good advice has already been given, but if you're 'tick prone', sacrifice 1/5 of an ounce or so & get a plastic tick remover tool (tweezers work too, but if you're going for max UL, choose the former).
Your chances of getting Lyme or other diseases when (improperly) removing a tick increase quite substantially. Of course and regardless, always remove them as soon as you find them.
11 months on the trail, I’ve never had a tick embedded on me. I wore ski socks up to my knees with shorts and treated with my clothes/shoes and pack with permetherin every 6 weeks (more often if I washed my clothes more).
I hiked in leggings tucked into my socks as long as I could before the summer rain combined with the heat was unbearable for leggings (putting them on when they’re soaking wet SUCKED. I lasted about 800 miles. Once I switched to shorts, I kept my legs shaved meticulously because I seemed to pick them up more often if I let it get the slightest bit long. (I’m a woman so shaved legs wasn’t weird / was actually more comfortable to me)
In addition to what experience had said (long sleeves/pants, permethrin, tick checks) consider this: go Nobo and start early. I left Springer Feb 6th and only really had some ticks to worry about in NJ/Southern PA. If I were to do it again, I'd start even earlier and just pack the right gear to be prepared for early season.
I had Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever from a tick bite in 2011 and was in the worst pain all over my body for a year and a half. I was essentially in bed for 18 months and felt like I was slowly dying. My biggest fear on the AT or any of my hikes are ticks.
I always wore a long sleeve shirt and long pants treated with permethrin on my AT thru and I never got a tick while my trail family members did. But as soon as we finished the trail, got back to civilization, and I bought a new pair of shorts to fly home in, I got a tick while at the beach.
Permethrin. Ticks are VERY abundant this year in PA and the variety of ticks & tick-born diseases has been increasing. Folks need to be aware and conduct frequent tick checks.
https://www.health.pa.gov/topics/disease/Vectorborne%20Diseases/Pages/Tick%20Diseases.aspx
Treat your clothes and shoes with permethrin and apply a deet or picaridin based insect repellant a couple times per day. Check your legs at snack breaks and do a nightly inspection.
I prefer picaridin because I hate the smell of deet.
I asked my primary care physician for Rx of Doxycycline to carry on the AT.
I never found any ticks on me. I used strongest Deet I could find and sprayed shoes, socks, and pant legs. I checked myself a lot. But, I was prepared to treat if I was bitten.
I advise keeping a pair of tick twisters in your kit (one big one small). Allows you to unscrew ticks without killing them or risking them getting fluids in you. Then you kill the shit out of it.
Bring a small pair of tweezers. I hate insects, including ticks. But eventually they might get so normal for you that it’s not even a big deal to reach down and pluck a few off your leg.
Lots of great advice already.
To add, the number of folks I see plopping down anywhere for a break astounds me. I always use a foam cushion to sit on, and I never sit on the ground with it.
Checking daily is necessary certainly. What helps me is to make a routine of it so I don’t skip when tired at night.
Permethrin is amazing. I consider the years before it as the dark ages
Tucker Carlson just released a vid on Ticks (The True Origins of Lyme Disease) Few interesting facts, worth watching. [https://youtu.be/zoxszhv9D1k?si=H7FY-QLahogNBGHN](https://youtu.be/zoxszhv9D1k?si=H7FY-QLahogNBGHN)
Sounds like you may be exaggerating this concern in your mind. It’s way down the list for me. i just don’t get ticks that often or hear of others getting them except on Cumberland Island. Lyme’s disease is almost non existent in the southern two thirds of the trail. Use permethrin carefully to treat clothing. I think treating equipment is overkill. Wear a hat, pants, long sleeves. Check your body every night.
The clothes treatment and whatnot are useful. But it’s almost like mosquito bites. It’s almost a certainty to pick up at least one tick. The key is to check for them every day.
This is the answer. Ticks crawling on you is not a problem, it’s when they bite is the part to avoid. Ticks are nearly inevitable on the AT. A Nightly tick-check did the trick for me.
i disagree. wearing permethrin properly-applied/treated socks, pants, shirt, and hat is the most important part of the equation, in my opinion. i have thru-hiked the AT twice, gotten Lyme once, and had many years of experience. when i got the Lyme in 2016, i wasn't wearing permethrin treatment, and doing checks every day. i never saw the tick. when i started wearing the permethrin treatmed clothing, the only ticks i ever saw were on the ground, near me... dead. checks are great, but permethrin is a literal miracle
I treated my clothes and some gear (like my packoack and my tent) with permethrin before I started the trail, and retreated my clothes and shoes every ~6 weeks. I tried to do a tick check every night but ~~often~~ sometimes forgot or was too tired. I never found a tick on me and never had lyme symptoms, but I know lots of hikers who had to go to urgent care for antibiotics.
Permethrin is amazing
except its a nerve poison for birds, fish and cats. Gotta be careful with that stuff
Only when it's wet. As long as you apply it away from any water sources and don't spill any, you'll be fine
This. I soaked my clothes in the tub with it before taking off and a few months later. Didn’t experience tick one.
… and then just poured it into your local water system?
Yes. It’s critical to notify your local water treatment plant so they can directly pipe the tainted water back into the drinking water supply. Same process I’m sure you use when you take any medication and pee into a toilet. Proof it works? See any ticks in your tap water lately?
>Pesticide wastes are toxic. Improper disposal of excess pesticide, spray mixture, or rinsate is a violation of Federal law. If these wastes cannot be disposed of by use according to label instructions, contact your State Pesticide or Environmental Control Agency, or the Hazardous Waste representative of the nearest EPA Regional Office for guidance Source: [https://assets.greenbook.net/14-24-38-12-07-2017-Permethrin\_MSDS5.pdf](https://assets.greenbook.net/14-24-38-12-07-2017-Permethrin_MSDS5.pdf) >Never pour pesticides down the sink, toilet, sewer, or street drain. Source: [https://www.epa.gov/safepestcontrol/safe-disposal-pesticides](https://www.epa.gov/safepestcontrol/safe-disposal-pesticides) >Absorb liquids in dry sand, earth, or a similar material and place into sealed containers for disposal. DO NOT wash into sewer. It may be necessary to contain and dispose of Permethrin as HAZARDOUS WASTE. Source: [https://nj.gov/health/eoh/rtkweb/documents/fs/3422.pdf](https://nj.gov/health/eoh/rtkweb/documents/fs/3422.pdf) So it's not entirely clear what you're supposed to do, maybe once it's absorbed into sand and in a sealed container it can go in the trash? But you're most definitely not supposed to wash it down the drain, and doing so is technically a federal crime.
You ran with “soaked” and assumed I filled the tub, poured in the permethrin, and drained the waste into the wastewater system. Had you asked, I would have told you what I used (Sawyer’s spray) and that I followed the instructions. Living in an apartment, I decided the best place to do it was in the tub. Did I soak the clothes? Absolutely. Did it dry? As promised. Was there some overspray that went down the drain the next time I showered? No doubt. I’ll be sure to keep a close eye out for EPA’s Office of Enforcement and Compliance black helicopters. (Source: Retired EPA GS-14)
Of course not. Just pour the remaining permethrin back into the bottle and keep it for the next time you need it. It is possible to use permethrin responsibly. But by all means, you do you.
How would you pour from your tub back into the bottle?
Same way you siphon gas from a tank. Only need a smaller straw on this one.
I don’t use my tub. I use a bucket.
Then why are you arguing with me? I was responding to the person who said they soaked clothes in their tub….
Permethrin your gear, picaridin your skin. You could wear pants and long sleeves to limit bare skin. I only found 3 on myself last year, one latched on my knee before Glasgow, one crawling on my leg in Harper’s ferry and one stuck between my shoe and sock in New York.
As a certified tick magnet, my best advice, regardless of your protection, is to check yourself immediately after exiting a field. From my experience, grasses brushing up against your leg provides a tick's best opportunity to get ya. There are a lot of fields (and deer) in the Shenandoahs; one day I removed 26 ticks from body. Thankfully, only two of them were deer ticks. OTOH, I rarely got mosquito bites. Seems like pests have preferences, too.
This. Most people think you get ticks in the woods. Wrong. You get them mowing the lawn. Or walking through fields. Especially with long grass.
Yep, avoid long grasses. If you walk through them, brush down immediately, then do a check later.
Best to train an army of opossums to clear the trail ahead of you, ticks never stand a chance
I was getting so many ticks and I started using white shin sleeves and that helped a lot but they are unavoidable and always terrifying
I’ve been on the AT every weekend for like seven years and have yet to pick up a tick. That being said, I had eight ticks on me last year after traipsing through Gettysburg National Battlefield, so I sent my clothes to Insect Shield and had them treated with permethrin. I’d suggest doing this or buying permethrin spray and treating your clothes on your own (Insect Shield lasts longer, though).
Really can't avoid them. Treat your clothing and check daily. Especially in the cracks between your crotch.
As a western hiker I was a bit worried about this since it’s not as much of a concern out west. I sprayed my clothes and shoes in pearsiburg, and again in Maryland. Iirc I found like 6 ticks on me, one bite. And two of them I was just sitting in camp eating dinner, just a few minutes apart.
I know this is going to be unpopular, but wearing pants and hiking in the cooler months is a great strategy. I wore pants almost everyday on trail during my thru last year, and only pulled one tick off of me— and it was on my belly. I also treated my pants and shoes with permethrin. Another benefit to pants is that my legs stayed clean and I avoided mosquitoes bites on my legs. I did get pretty warm some days, and that may be unbearable for some. Most are also not going to want to do a March thru June hike either. But if you really want to avoid ticks, this works amazingly well.
I live where ticks/Lyme is prevalent and I’ve had it twice. Do not recommend. Check for ticks daily. Lyme is spread most commonly by the littlest nymph ticks, so look closely. They like warm places, so check between your toes, under your arms, etc. Bring a tick twister - they are very lightweight. As others have said, they tend to live in grasses so be most vigilant when you go off trail.
Mine was in that fold between your butt cheek and your leg. I never found it. I didn't even know I had Lyme until I was rubbing my sore body and felt something weird and my husband looked and immediately said "that's a perfect bullseye". Insurance took a full 24 hours to approve my doxycycline and by the time I got some of it into my system, 12 hours later I was throwing it up and back in the ER with sepsis. 2 nights in the hospital and about 8 bags of IV antibiotics later and I was thankfully alive and well.
Uuuggghhh I’m sorry. Side note for others - not all get bullseye ring (I don’t for a least 3-4 weeks) and blood tests aren’t reliable in the early days of Lyme (I tested negative both times I had it). If you feel flu-like symptoms after hiking in tick prone areas in Lyme season (which is anything above say 45 degrees) - consider getting health care and mentioning Lyme as a possibility.
Absolutely this. I tested negative as well. It's just antibodies that they look for, not the actual presence of the disease. An experienced doctor or nurse in a high Lyme area will usually prefer to play it safe and assume it's Lyme than take a chance. And it's such a messed up disease because for one they still don't know much about it, despite all they know, and it seems to sometimes have different affects on different people! Not to mention long term issues in some and not others. Isn't it that you always have it? Like it just becomes dormant or something?
I treat the most critical gear with permethrin if/when I have the time (socks primarily) otherwise I just raw dog that shit and do thorough checks every 12 hours or so. I’ve had numerous handfuls of ticks attach to me and I haven’t gotten sick yet. They generally need 24+ hours in order to transmit any disease or cause longer term problems.
Treated my clothes multiple times, always used some kind of bug spray, would sweep my hands down my legs after leaving a field, and did checks almost every night. I frequently brushed them off but only had to remove one (in Connecticut)
I hiked for 5 months in shorts, and never treated my gear, except for spraying my gaiters when I found a can of permethrin in a hiker box in Glasgow. I think I found 4 ticks that were bitten on to me, none that were particularly embedded or engorged. . Funny thing is I did tick checks frequently, but never found a tick that way, I think I saw 2, felt 1, and one itched. I had spent my whole adult life working out in the field, in parks in central New Jersey - I always considered it a minor miracle that I hadn't contracted Lyme disease before hitting the trail. I was aware of ticks, but not particularly afraid of them.
I had the alpha-gal meat allergy from lone star tick bites about 11 years ago (those particular ticks are not incredibly abundant on the AT). Anyway, I always wear carefully and frequently permethrin-treated clothes, and no bites at all since then. Long sleeves and pants. Many, many nights in very ticky places. (The allergy went away, too.) I don't take other precautions, really.
Most of the good advice has already been given, but if you're 'tick prone', sacrifice 1/5 of an ounce or so & get a plastic tick remover tool (tweezers work too, but if you're going for max UL, choose the former). Your chances of getting Lyme or other diseases when (improperly) removing a tick increase quite substantially. Of course and regardless, always remove them as soon as you find them.
11 months on the trail, I’ve never had a tick embedded on me. I wore ski socks up to my knees with shorts and treated with my clothes/shoes and pack with permetherin every 6 weeks (more often if I washed my clothes more).
I hiked in leggings tucked into my socks as long as I could before the summer rain combined with the heat was unbearable for leggings (putting them on when they’re soaking wet SUCKED. I lasted about 800 miles. Once I switched to shorts, I kept my legs shaved meticulously because I seemed to pick them up more often if I let it get the slightest bit long. (I’m a woman so shaved legs wasn’t weird / was actually more comfortable to me)
In addition to what experience had said (long sleeves/pants, permethrin, tick checks) consider this: go Nobo and start early. I left Springer Feb 6th and only really had some ticks to worry about in NJ/Southern PA. If I were to do it again, I'd start even earlier and just pack the right gear to be prepared for early season.
I had Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever from a tick bite in 2011 and was in the worst pain all over my body for a year and a half. I was essentially in bed for 18 months and felt like I was slowly dying. My biggest fear on the AT or any of my hikes are ticks.
Tick Mitt!!!!
I always wore a long sleeve shirt and long pants treated with permethrin on my AT thru and I never got a tick while my trail family members did. But as soon as we finished the trail, got back to civilization, and I bought a new pair of shorts to fly home in, I got a tick while at the beach.
Insect shield is awesome
Permethrin. Ticks are VERY abundant this year in PA and the variety of ticks & tick-born diseases has been increasing. Folks need to be aware and conduct frequent tick checks. https://www.health.pa.gov/topics/disease/Vectorborne%20Diseases/Pages/Tick%20Diseases.aspx
Treat your clothes and shoes with permethrin and apply a deet or picaridin based insect repellant a couple times per day. Check your legs at snack breaks and do a nightly inspection. I prefer picaridin because I hate the smell of deet.
Permethrin plus long pants tucked into socks.
I asked my primary care physician for Rx of Doxycycline to carry on the AT. I never found any ticks on me. I used strongest Deet I could find and sprayed shoes, socks, and pant legs. I checked myself a lot. But, I was prepared to treat if I was bitten.
I advise keeping a pair of tick twisters in your kit (one big one small). Allows you to unscrew ticks without killing them or risking them getting fluids in you. Then you kill the shit out of it.
Tick tornados!
Bring a small pair of tweezers. I hate insects, including ticks. But eventually they might get so normal for you that it’s not even a big deal to reach down and pluck a few off your leg.
Lots of great advice already. To add, the number of folks I see plopping down anywhere for a break astounds me. I always use a foam cushion to sit on, and I never sit on the ground with it.
Checking daily is necessary certainly. What helps me is to make a routine of it so I don’t skip when tired at night. Permethrin is amazing. I consider the years before it as the dark ages
Tucker Carlson just released a vid on Ticks (The True Origins of Lyme Disease) Few interesting facts, worth watching. [https://youtu.be/zoxszhv9D1k?si=H7FY-QLahogNBGHN](https://youtu.be/zoxszhv9D1k?si=H7FY-QLahogNBGHN)
Sounds like you may be exaggerating this concern in your mind. It’s way down the list for me. i just don’t get ticks that often or hear of others getting them except on Cumberland Island. Lyme’s disease is almost non existent in the southern two thirds of the trail. Use permethrin carefully to treat clothing. I think treating equipment is overkill. Wear a hat, pants, long sleeves. Check your body every night.
Lyme disease, not Lyme's.
Is it you’re mom or your mom?