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Tips for a Successful Summer Hike
Avoid heat exhaustion. Heat exhaustion is the preamble to heat stroke, and its symptoms include headache, dizziness, muscle cramps, and copious amounts of sweating. If you experience these symptoms, seek out rest and shade immediately; it’s a surefire sign you need to lower your body temperature. Once you stop sweating altogether, you should start worrying because that is a symptom of a life-threatening heat stroke! Choose the proper path and attire. When hiking in the summer, it’s best to pick a path with ample shade. Alternatively, you can hike in darkness. Night hikes, illuminated by headlamps and flashlights, are a great way to escape the summer heat and experience the trail like never before. If you want attire that reduces your temperature and provides more protection, try wearing UPF-rated clothing to block harmful rays. Picking the right time, place, and attire can help ensure your summer hike is a scorching success!
If prepared for the elements, you can enjoy hiking year-round. But if you embark on a trail in the extreme heat without the means to handle it, you place yourself on a perilous path. Heat, unlike cold, cannot be mitigated by simply bundling up. From maintaining proper hydration to donning the proper attire, here are three tips to ensure your Staying hydrated is key in any season, but it is especially vital when the summer heat beats down on you! Pack extra water for your hike and have water in your vehicle after you finish. If you are tired of lugging around extra water bottles, a hydration pack can help you carry extra H20 hands-free and take sips while on the move. To reduce the risk of painful sunburns, apply sunscreen to all exposed skin areas. Additionally, take a break every 40 minutes to reapply sunscreen as needed. summer hikes are safe and enjoyable! Remember hydration and sunscreen.
Surprising Facts About Ladybugs Rather than a backyard pest, ladybugs are a backyard best. These spotted creatures are adored worldwide for their innate cuteness and vibrant color and their role as a natural form of pest control. However, ladybugs are more fascinating than you may realize, so prepare to admire them even more. Don’t Bug Me Despite their popularity, ladybugs are also misunderstood. For one thing, ladybugs aren’t bugs — they are beetles! Unlike bugs, beetles are omnivores that enjoy munching on plants and insects. Ladybugs’ favorite food is the aphid, a tiny insect that wreaks havoc on crops and gardens. This makes them one of the few creatures helpful enough that people intentionally introduce them to their gardens. Their pest-control properties have long given them the reputation as miracle workers — so much so that their namesake is likely the Virgin Mary, sometimes depicted in paintings as wearing a red cloak. Colorful Critters While many think of ladybugs as small red critters with black spots, they are more varied than you might realize. There are 5,000 species of ladybugs worldwide and more than 450 in North America alone! Interestingly, in addition to red, ladybugs also come in yellow, Garden Guardians
brown, orange, and even pink, with some sporting zebra-like stripes instead of spots. Mighty Matriarch Their colorful exoskeletons — formed from a protein similar to the one that forms our fingernails — are for more than just show. While they are harmless to humans, their appearance dissuades potential predators. When found in nature, vibrant colors indicate that an animal may be toxic and foul-tasting. Ladybugs can release a nauseatingly foul-smelling chemical to repel predators if a threat gets too close. Beloved by all for their colorful exteriors, ladybugs’ handy habit of preying on pests makes them a welcome addition to the garden and a vital part of a healthy backyard ecosystem. These spectacular beetles are a fixture the world over, and the more you learn about them, the more they will amaze you!
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