I was standing in the creek, a few feet from a spring we had dammed up to supply the cabin at Snowbird with water, when I felt a pain in my leg, like I’d been stuck by a thorn. I knew exactly what had caused the pain and it wasn’t a thorn. It was a wasp. I had run into those guys before in the mountains, several times, and I knew I was about to be swarmed.
I turned and began running down the middle fork of the Juanite. They hit me two more times in the neck. I tripped over rhododendron limbs hanging over the creek and fell headfirst in the mud and water, and then I was back up again, running. Breathing hard now, I scrambled up the bank on the left, where the rhododendron was thickest, trying to shake them.
I escaped but I had lost my glasses, knocked off by a limb, maybe. Brother Pop and I would have to wait until tomorrow to get water to the cabin because it was almost dark and I would need his help finding my glasses. First, though, before I could clean out the pipe from the spring and get the water running, I had to do something about those wasps.
* * *
I guess you could say that, together, Pop and I equaled a whole man: He could see but he had a hard time walking; I could walk but, without my glasses, I had a hard time seeing.
Next morning we went back to spring together and he found my glasses. And then I spotted the hole to the wasps’ nest, in the bank above the spring. It was a big one, about the size of a man’s thumb. Wasps were flying in and out three or four at a time.
It would have been smarter to go after them at night or early in the morning, but I had missed those windows. If we wanted water at the cabin now, I had to pour gas down that hole now.
I walked back to the cabin and got a jacket, a hat, and an extra pair or blue jeans to protect me from their stings. I also got a gallon jug with a pint or so of gas — and a cup. My plan was to pour some of the gas into the cup and then cut a small hole in the bottom of the jug. I would creep up close, throw gas at wasps going in or out of the hole — which would kill them dead — and then set the jug of gasoline on top the hole so gas could leak into the nest. I didn’t like using gasoline that close to the spring but what choice did I have?
* * *
When it was time I unbuckled my belt and unzip my second pair of jeans to reach my knife, in the pocket of my other jeans, turned the jug upside down, and cut a small hole in the bottom.
Then I eased toward the nest, slowly, quietly, so as not to disturb the wasps. Everything was going just dandy until I put my left foot on the wooden cover over the spring, to get close enough place the jug, and a rotten board gave way. My boot crashed though and my leg went into the hole, up to my knee. I was caught.
At that moment a column of wasps, a thick, solid, yellow, column of wasps, rose out of the nest. I was petrified. They were at eye level and in a moment they would be all over me.
But in that moment, I threw the cup of gas on them, the only thing I did right.
In a panic I set the jug of gas on the hole upside down when I should have set it on the nest right side up — I had cut the hole in the bottom of the jug.
I pulled my leg free, scrambled up the far bank on all fours, and stood up to run. I couldn’t. I had unbuckled and unzipped my second pair of jeans to get to my knife and but I had not zipped up my pants or rebuckled my belt. The jeans fell to my ankles, shortening my stride to about six inches.
Did I get stung? Yes, but not swarmed because of the one thing I did right — that cup of gas right in their face.
Postscript: After I calmed down and regained my nerve I crept back, turned the jug right side up, and that was that.
NOTE: This is where I learned how to nuke wasps.
Coming Monday: Not A Smart Thing To Say