4-month thru starting in March: bugs in New England?

[jeffmeh]

Permethrin does not help with blackflies. I spent 2 summers doing field work in western MA with some of the worst blackflies imaginable, and my permethrin-treated clothes did not stop them from attacking me constantly. (Permethrin is great for ticks though)

Interesting.

I have had the black flies swarm around and sometimes land on the permethrin treated clothing, but fly off immediately after landing. My hiking companions seemed to fare worse without it. Nothing seems to prevent them from swarming around when they are dense enough. Sorry that it did not work out for you.

[tdoczi]

Would a flip flop hike help or hurt in this case?
Or maybe the question Im asking is how would a Harpers Ferry flip flop change the dynamics of this proposed hike?

most people effectively cant hike VT, NH and ME any earlier than june really no matter how you do it.is there even a windown between snow melt and bugs that one could in theory try and squeeze through?

[tdoczi]

I finished in a 3.5 month AT hike in mid-July in a wet year ('08) and had very few problems with bugs.

my sense is stories like this are more common than woeful tails of being ravaged by to death by insects.

ive hiked NH in june many times, no problems at all. ive hiked in ME in early july, no problems at all.

ive gotten a huge collection of mosquito bites in CT in june and (despite conventional wisdom) in MA in september. but so what? i survived. i can see why it might not be ideal, but i dont know that i'd ever change a plan because of a concern about bugs.

[rafe]

The AT crosses a marsh just north of Moose Pond Mtn, near Hanover. I stopped to get a photo of wild iris and was nearly eaten alive by skeeters. The date was June 22, 2002.

I recall a miserable hike in June in the DAKs, because of the black flies. Crazy skeeters on the MA Mid-State trail (June 17, 2007).

Hard to say exactly when the skeeters come out, but generally not before the monorail has melted. That's one saving grace of winter hiking, for sure. (The monorail is the ice that marks most White Mountain trails in late winter and early spring.)