2012 already looks like bad year for ticks

Ticks are taking over the coastal foothills right now. Some days are like a horror film, with Dracula bugs everywhere - in the high grass, on the low-lying limbs of chaparral - waiting for a victim to brush by so they can jump on for the ride.

It's the worst season I've seen for ticks in 10 years and among the worst in 30 years.

It isn't localized. The Ventana Wilderness near Big Sur on the Monterey coast has so many ticks this winter that it's like an invasion force has commandeered the countryside.

At Half Moon Bay, Montara and in Marin, it's much the same. On the Point Reyes National Seashore, especially the Coastal Trail out of Palomarin near Bolinas, some days are like an epidemic. Yet the worst area could be the coastal hills near Pescadero.

The Sierra foothills are also loaded with ticks right now, most at elevations from 800 to 2,000 feet in landscapes with high grass near creeks.

Maybe it's the weather: just enough rain to get things going, warm most afternoons, great conditions not only for ticks, but for hiking, biking and dog walks. The twain thus meet.

Ticks usually hang in grass and brush from ground level up about 18 inches, so if you stay on the trail or ranch-style roads and keep your dog close, you can avoid them. If you stray through grass and brush, they'll come aboard. A tick's favorite trick is to work its way up and nail you, often at the hairline at the back of the neck.

I've brushed off dozens of ticks and pulled off many on my hikes, and all told over the years, hundreds from my dogs. They don't bother me much.

But ticks make many people feel creepy. The best trick I know is to wear synthetic hiking pants, tuck them into your socks and spray Permethrin-based repellent on your lower pants, and DEET on your socks and exposed skin. When you get home, change your clothes in an empty bathtub (so you'll see if any ticks fall out), check your backside in a mirror and wash your clothes.

For dogs, brush them out immediately. Search around their neck, ears, face and shoulders.

If a tick gets its hypostome into you or your dog, make sure to get all of it out, especially its claw-like mouth, for which tweezers are sometimes necessary. Then apply Campho-Phenique, Neosporin or similar treatment on the bite.

If you're worried about Lyme disease, rare but debilitating, put the offending tick in a Ziploc bag for doctors to test later, if necessary. Within a few days, if you see a half-dollar size discoloring around the bite area, the usual warning sign, head to the doctor. Quick treatment with antibiotics is the remedy.

For dogs, apply a repellent to the back of your pet's neck. We use Frontline Plus, advertised to kill and repel ticks and fleas and to be waterproof. We also vaccinate our dogs for Lyme disease.

My record tick day was on a gentle hike with my parents in the hills near Pescadero. In an hour, my dog picked up more than 100, I brushed off dozens from my pants and pulled off a half dozen. Yet my mom, wearing polyester pants, got none. Nothing scientific about it, but the empirical evidence is compelling.

For people not oriented to the outdoors, the idea of a tick crawling on them is a real-life horror movie.

But they shouldn't stop you from enjoying your adventures, not for one minute. Once you get used to them, the little guys are even kind of cute. Yeah, sure. Not.