Poison Ivy

[Cham102]

I've managed to do this twice. The first time I did it I was hiking in the ivy and stupidly laid in my hammock without changing clothes first. Don't do that. The second was last week, where I used my hammock a bunch of times last summer and got ivy oil on my hammock. Last week I laid in the hammock in my yard for the first time and got a nice pre-season case of poison ivy itch and bumps. I wrote about the situation on the Hammock Facebook group for advice and several good people advised me to wash the hammock with a little Dawn dish detergent and water. I did that and the oil is now off the hammock.

[MountainFeist]

Thanks! I just ordered some, and it'll be in by tomorrow. (Gotta love Amazon Prime!)
I am very good at identifying it, there is just so much around here that it's hard to run a trail and not brush against it on occasion.

[Skytow]

I swear I get PI by simply looking at the stuff. Man, I hate it. Was working on a trail crew for a scout outing a few years ago and had the vines literally wrapped around my legs. That afternoon I washed up and used my not so secret weapon, Tecnu, against it. Technu is your friend in the battle against PI.

For me it is 100% effective in removing the oils and not getting a rash. You can add it to your wash as well to remove the oil from clothing and I’d guess a hammock! I keep a small 2oz squeeze bottle in my pack.

[grimm0614]

If I had a concern that my hammock had enough plant oils on it to cause a reaction, I'd just wash it. Gentle soap in a 5 gallon bucket, agitate by hand, rinse thoroughly, hang dry out of the sun.

That said, my hammock is never touching anything enough to believe that plant oils would transfer to the point of it causing issues. My hammocks go from stuff sack to hanging and back to sack. I also don't sleep in my hiking pants unless it's very cold and at that time, there's nothing to transfer the oils to my pants anyway.

[mcimes]

I thought I knew what PI was, then I moved to Massachusetts and Connecticut for a little while. The biggest PI vine I ever saw out east was about 5" diameter, hairy like a sasquatch, had stiff/woody branches up to 1" diameter that extended from the vine almost 8' horizontally. It was at a park I frequented and it was so big I did not register it as PI the first time I saw it and almost brushed by it.
Growing up in the MN woods, I've seen my fair share of PI, but nothing like the east coast has. That crap is mutant-big.

As others have said if you think there was a chance you oiled your pants, change before entering the hammock. My hammock never touches the ground unless its a slip up, so directly touching PI (or PO in my area) is not likely

[MountainFeist]

My hammock never touches the PI directly, and I avoid it myself like the plague, but somehow I still occasionally get it, so I know I must have somehow touched it. Even in the winter I can get it from the leafless vines that I'm trying to avoid, and the small ones aren't hairy yet, so it's really hard to see them. So I consider, no matter how careful I am, that there's a chance I got the oils on my pants. I never get in the hammock in my outer hiking pants. I was hoping I was going over-kill and I could lighten up my vigilance about protecting the hammock from the oils, but it sounds like I must keep at it. Have I mentioned how badly I hate poison ivy?

[tuxhiker]

This is a link to a poison ivy identification quiz: https://www.proprofs.com/quiz-school/story.php?title=mtyxmdu4oqfyyq
Someone originally posted it on Whiteblaze years ago. It has helped me recognize some of the poison ivy look-a-likes. Unfortunately, I don't know how to turn the link into a hyperlink.

[joe_guilbeau]

This is a link to a poison ivy identification quiz: https://www.proprofs.com/quiz-school...mtyxmdu4oqfyyq
Someone originally posted it on Whiteblaze years ago. It has helped me recognize some of the poison ivy look-a-likes. Unfortunately, I don't know how to turn the link into a hyperlink.

https://www.proprofs.com/quiz-school...mtyxmdu4oqfyyq

[Skytow]

15/17 correct for me! Yech...still hate the stuff!!!

[BillyBob58]

I am so prone to getting poison ivy that my caution to avoid it borders on phobia. Even in the summer I run/hike in leggings with socks that cover my ankles (usually with trail gaiters, too,) and if I'm in an area with poison ivy encroaching over the trail I wear convertible hiking pants over the tights so I can remove the lower half before getting into my hammock. (And I pick my way carefully.) This is getting old. (And hot.)

I'm glad to hear that you haven't had a problem with poison ivy in the hammock.
I suggest spraying the one near your mailbox... I sprayed so vigorously last year under some trees in my yard that I about killed the trees. They are still recovering!

I am the same way with a phobia for the stuff. I have had some bad encounters. When I started hanging in 2006, that was one of the first things I worried about. But I became super skilled about spotting the stuff, so have had no rashes during my 13years of hanging(knock on wood), and it is everywhere where I hang. I think my break thru came when, in addition to the leaves of 3 business(unfortunately, it's not only poison Ivy/Oak that has leaves of 3), realizing what the vine that grows up the tree looks like, was a HUGE help. The bigger vines look like a woolly bugger or caterpillar. I can spot those from 25 yards. But sometimes I have to look real close to ID the little skinny vines, but it can be done. I can't tell you how often I have not been able to find any leaves of 3, but I spot that vine. Then if my gaze follows that vine far enough up into the tree, there it is: lots of leaves of 3 mixed in with the leaves of the tree! I waste no time getting away from that tree. The vine itself can get you, and obviously if you try to hang from that tree your straps are going to be squeezing that vine. lso, can you imagine hanging all night under a tree that might be dropping poison Ivy leaves on you or your tarp? Or covering the ground of your campsite? Another thing: I am mostly in the woods in the winter. No leaves in the winter, they are all on the ground, normally around a near by vine. But I can spot the vine all year, and the bigger ones(quite common) from a distance.

The other thing that helped me was becoming slightly skilled at also identifying the less common poison sumac. Regular sumac is everywhere, with some poison sumac thrown in. In reality, I probably mostly try and avoid all sumac, rather than taking the time to look only for the poison relative. It is faster to just do that. It's a jungle out there!

Even though I was all over the woods most of my young life, poison Ivy/oak/sumac never even crossed my mind. But I have read that people who start out not allergic can later become very allergic. Not sure about that, but at age 34, while hiking in West Clear Creek canyon in AZ, I discovered the wonders of poison oak. I later found out it was common on the trail in that canyon, but it never occurred to me to even look for it. But after several weeks of suffering with that miserable, itchy rash- even had to use strong prescription steroid drugs- I came to outright fear it. I had one or two small rashes in the years following that, even though I would always run from leaves of 3. I'm pretty sure my last rash was from doing trail maintenance in MS after an ice storm, I'm pretty sure I was picking up limbs that had that vine on them. That was about 1992, and shortly after that I learned about the vine, and since then, even with my off trail hiking, I have managed to stay rash free. But I am ALWAYS on the look out for that evil stuff.