Unless you also enjoy swimming naked with jellyfish, I would heartily recommend that you not wear shorts when you hike the southern trails at Dugualla State Park.
Kath and I hadn’t been there for over a year. We were long overdue for a visit, but I also knew what we would find. The north loop and beach trails are wide open; the south loop trail and a couple of the connector trails, however, are a different story in summer. The nettles are fully grown and lean over long stretches of these trails.
I grew up with stinging nettles. The gullies around my neighborhood overflowed with their dense patches. Our trails were narrow and laced with these menacing threats. Too often I had to use local mud to soothe the intense stinging after brushing by a wayward stem along the path. As a four-year-old, these experiences seared into my memories.
My Uncle John said he spent so much time hiking through local woods that the stings no longer affected him. I never attempted to reach that level of immunity. In fact, I have made a concerted effort to never get stung, unless Murphy loses his ball in nettles, and even then, I attack them with a sword-like branch to level a pain-free path to the ball. Uncle John would be disappointed in me.
Kath wore her trademark long skirt on this day, and I had long pants and a long-sleeved shirt. Murphy would have to protect his nose as best he could.
Stinging nettle is found worldwide. Its scientific name, Urtica dioica, comes from the Latin word uro, which means “to burn,” an apt description. They only produce male or female flowers throughout each plant, thus giving its other name dioica, meaning “two houses.”
Nettle prefers nitrogen-rich soil and is commonly found in the understory of riparian areas, along the edges of meadows, and in open forests.
Nettles have developed stinging cells as an adaptation to deter herbivores from eating them. It works! The plants contain long, thin, hollow hairs that cover most of the stem and the underside of the leaves, ready to become hypodermic needles if disturbed. Nettles inject formic acid, histamine, and other chemicals. It is the histamine that causes the initial reaction when you are stung.
Ancient Egyptians used stinging nettles to treat arthritis and lower back pain, while Roman troops rubbed leaves on themselves to help stay warm in England. That’s just weird.
Young plants can be harvested, cooked, and eaten in spring. Soaking or cooking the nettles in water removes the stinging chemicals, allowing them to be handled and eaten. Cooked nettles taste much like spinach.
If you do get stung, here are four remedies to try:
- Dock leaves. Dock leaves contain an antihistamine that helps ease the stinging sensation. It tends to grow in the same places as nettles. How convenient.
- Baking soda. Baking soda is the simplest remedy for nettle stings. It’s an alkaline which neutralizes the nettle’s acid. Do you have baking soda in your rucksack? Yeah, me neither.
- Wash it. Soap is also an alkaline. Use diluted dish soap to clean the area. This assumes you always carry dish soap with you.
- Mud. Or do like I did as a four-year-old. Swab some mud on the affected skin and let it stay there as you head back home. Yeah, it’s a mess, but it cools the burning.
So Kath and I made it through the nettle fields unscathed, no problem. Just dress for it. And then we had miles of trails to explore, nettle free, deep sanctuaries of woods a hundred years old, some ancients maybe a thousand.
We bathed our souls in the quietude of these forests, the majesty of the old-growth, and the promise of maturing trees from when this land was logged decades ago. The nettles are just another fascinating element of this natural world we live in.
Directions
Directions: From Highway 20 north of Oak Harbor, take Sleeper Road east two and a half miles to the very end of the road. There is parking for maybe a dozen cars there.
By Bike: Highway 20 has narrow shoulders, busy high-speed traffic, and rolling hills. Sleeper Road is rolling with narrow shoulders but very little traffic.
Mobility: The early parts of the trail are gently rolling, wide, and relatively well-packed dirt, though muddy in the winter. Further in all of the trails become narrow, steeper, and rougher.
Republished with permission. Read the original article.