Thanks for a very interesting - and entertaining - post.

Armed with the details, A quick search yielded more on your tormentor, an airborne pest known as the Snow Mosquito, Aedes communis, whose range extends beyond that listed in my link, above, but see also here.

In the world of mosquitoes, there is another nasty critter called the Western Tree Hole Mosquito, Aedes sierrensis, which should be of particular interest to dog owners.

As TB notes, these and other species can lay their eggs in the smallest little puddles of water imaginable. Many deciduous trees form crotches at the junction of major branches where water collects after rain, and these constitute a major resource for such insects, hence the common name. The female mosquitoes have amazing powers of detection not only for sources of their blood meals, but also, as you may imagine, for water.

Early one morning, as I prepared to prime and refuel my Mr. Coffee, I noticed something orbiting a tiny drip from my kitchen faucet's Pur water filter. A deft hand-grab snared the wee beastie, which proved to be a mosquito, no doubt a female, that had homed in on that tiny drip of H20.

Those bug zappers not all they're hyped up to be, eh? Seems I'd read somewhere that most of the victims are moths. I know the insect remains on those irritating zappers are an easy source of food for some birds, primarily P. domesticus, which also finds easy meals of squashed insects on summertime cars.

As for your hiking companions, sounds like you've got the raw material for a good short story, novel, or article.

S