Beat ticks, mosquitoes and poison ivy before the trailhead

Quick answer: Treat your clothes with permethrin, put picaridin or DEET on bare skin, check every body within two hours of coming off the trail, and wash with soap and cool water fast if you brushed poison ivy. Do all four and you've beaten most of what the woods throws at a family.

A young deer tick is about the size of a poppy seed. Your eight-year-old can carry one home on his scalp and nobody will see it until Thursday.

None of this is a reason to stay on the couch. It's a reason to spend ten minutes on the boring parts. Here's how the three biggest trail nuisances actually work, and what beats each one.

Ticks: clothes first, skin second

The most effective move happens before anyone leaves the house. Treat hiking pants, socks, shirts and hats with permethrin. Spray-on versions like Sawyer's work fine. Do it outside, let everything dry fully, and keep it off skin. Permethrin is for fabric only. It's also hard on cats until it's dry, so keep the house cat out of the garage that afternoon.

Spray-on treatment wears out after a handful of washes, so read your label. Factory-treated clothing costs more up front and is rated to last far longer. If your family hikes every weekend, it pays for itself. If you go twice a summer, buy the spray.

Then add a repellent on exposed skin (more on that below). Tuck pants into socks. It looks like a dad from 1987, and it works anyway. Light-colored clothes let you spot a tick crawling before it finds a place to settle.

Walk the middle of the trail. Ticks wait on grass and brush at the edges and climb aboard when you brush past. Tell the kids no to the shortcut through the tall grass. It saves ninety seconds and costs you a tick check you didn't need.

The tick check you do every time

Do it within two hours of getting back. A shower helps, and so does a clean pair of eyes.

Check the places ticks like: the hairline and scalp, behind the ears, behind the knees, the armpits, the waistband, and the creases where legs meet the body. Do the kids first. Do yourself last, because you'll be tempted to skip it.

Toss the clothes in the dryer on high for ten minutes before they touch a hamper. Heat kills ticks. Washing alone doesn't always. Check the dog too, and the gear bag you set in the grass.

If you find one attached:

• Grab it with fine-tipped tweezers, as close to the skin as you can.
• Pull straight up with steady pressure. Don't twist, don't jerk.
• Clean the bite with soap and water or rubbing alcohol.
• Skip the petroleum jelly, the nail polish and the lit match. They're folk remedies and they don't work.

The CDC says a tick generally has to stay attached a day and a half or more to pass Lyme disease. That's why the nightly check matters so much. Watch the bite for a few weeks. A spreading rash, or a fever and aches after a hike, means a call to your doctor. Mention the tick. The rash doesn't always look like a bull's-eye either, so don't wait for the textbook version.

Mosquitoes: pick your repellent and use enough

Not all repellents are equal. The CDC points to products registered with the EPA: DEET, picaridin, IR3535, oil of lemon eucalyptus and a few others. Everything else on the shelf, the wristbands and the clip-on gadgets included, is a gamble.

My picks are 20 percent picaridin or 20 to 30 percent DEET. Picaridin doesn't smell like a chemistry lab, and it doesn't eat plastic or synthetic fabric. DEET can. If you've ever watched it soften the finish on a watch crystal or a fishing rod grip, you know.

Some rules for kids:

• Adults put it on their own hands first, then rub it onto the child.
• Keep it off hands, eyes and mouth.
• Check the label for age limits. Oil of lemon eucalyptus isn't for children under three.
• Wash it off when you're done for the day.

Mosquitoes are weak fliers. A battery fan blowing across your camp table does more than most people expect. Dawn and dusk are peak biting time, and standing water is where they come from. Pitch the tent on higher, drier ground, away from the pond. A breeze helps. So does a lantern set away from where you sit, because bugs follow light.

Mosquitoes are annoying, but they're also one more reason to plan the first family trip short. Our piece on why your first family camping trip should be one night covers what else to keep simple.

Poison ivy: the oil is the whole problem

The rash comes from urushiol, an oil in the leaves, stems, roots and vines of poison ivy, poison oak and poison sumac. It gets on you and sinks in. The rash shows up 12 to 72 hours later, usually after everyone has stopped thinking about it.

"Leaves of three, let it be" is a decent rule with a lot of exceptions. Look for the hairy rope: a thick, fuzzy vine climbing a tree is a bad sign. And the vine has oil even in winter, when it's bare and looks like nothing.

The rash isn't contagious. Blister fluid doesn't spread it. What spreads it is leftover oil on skin, clothes, boots and the dog. Urushiol sticks around a long time on objects, which is why a boot lace you didn't wash in April can give you a rash in July.

If you touched it, move fast.

1. Rinse the area right away with cool running water and soap. Dish soap cuts oil well. Cleansers made for it, like Tecnu, work too. Sooner is better. The first hour is the best window.
2. Wash the clothes. Wash the boot laces. Wipe the trekking pole grips.
3. Wash the dog. Fur carries it home.
4. Keep skin cool. Cold compresses and hydrocortisone cream calm most rashes.

Call a doctor if it's on your face or near your eyes, if it covers a large part of your body, if it swells, or if there's fever or pus. Those need professional care, not another bottle of calamine.

One more rule. Never burn brush you can't identify. Burning poison ivy puts the oil into smoke, and breathing it can hurt your lungs badly. Don't clear it from a campsite with a machete either. Pick another site and leave the plant alone. That's the old rule of leaving a place better than you found it, and it includes not spreading the problem to the next family.

What goes in the family kit

Keep it small and keep it in the truck. The things that earn their space:

• Fine-tipped tweezers, two pairs. One will walk off.
• Permethrin spray for the gear you already own
• Picaridin or DEET, plus a smaller bottle for the day pack
• Dish soap or a poison ivy cleanser in a travel bottle
• Hydrocortisone cream
• A zip bag for a tick, in case the doctor asks to see it

If you're building a pack list from scratch, the ten essentials cover the big stuff. This is the small stuff that fits in the first aid pouch.

Do it once and it becomes routine. Spray the clothes on a Friday, check the kids on Saturday night, run the dryer on Sunday. Fifteen minutes a trip. Compared with a week of antibiotics or a rash that wraps your leg, it's the cheapest insurance you'll buy.

And next time your son wants to cut through the tall grass, you'll have an answer.