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Source: https://outdoors.stackexchange.com/q/20429
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

<p>I thought I knew every pest in our woods and on the trail to Great Falls National Park, and had been bitten by all of them, but I have never encountered <a href="https://www.healthline.com/health/chigger-bites" rel="nofollow noreferrer">chiggers</a>. Not in our woods, not on hikes to and in Great Falls National Park, not in Shenandoah.  I have always thought of them as denizens of the deeper South. </p>

<p>However, today the arborist who is taking down a large dead tree in our woods said he been badly bitten by chiggers yesterday.  He said it was worse than the worst case of poison ivy.</p>

<p>I looked up chiggers, and saw that they are in Northern Virginia.  See <a href="https://www.chiggaway.com/ChiggerCountry.htm" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Chigger Map of the United States</a>.  If so, they have been keeping a low profile in Great Falls.  </p>

<p><strong>Are chiggers having a good year here because we have had enormous amounts of rain this spring and summer?  Or are they more numerous because they are moving north?</strong> </p>

<p>If masses of chiggers have moved permanently into the northern Virginia woods, <strong>how can I protect myself against them?</strong>  I always wear long pants and long sleeves anyway; do I need to do more?</p>