Utah Recreation Areas

Utah has ten national forests, and parts of each are equipped with picnicking and camping facilities, including fire pits, picnic tables, safe water, and restrooms. Fires should be built only at designated places, within a ten-foot circle clear of inflammable material, and should be put dead out before leaving. Matches should be broken, with one finger on the burnt end, before they are thrown away. Cigarettes and pipe dregs should be stamped into humus-free soil. For other recreation grounds see Recreation, and Parks and Primitive Areas.

Fishing: Game fish are defined as trout, black bass, mountain herring, silver salmon, catfish, whitefish, crappie, and perch.

Poisonous Plants: Three-leafed poison ivy, with foliage bearing an irritating oil, occurs throughout the State, except in deserts. If infected, wash exposed parts with strong soap and warm water; calamine lotion or sugar of lead are good counteractives after irritation sets in. Plant has seductively gorgeous foliage in fall. Lupine, growing on mountain slopes and foothills, has poisonous foliage; treat similarly to poison ivy. Stinging nettle, irritating but non-poisonous, occurs among thick growths in canyons and along rivers; sting is eased by vaseline or cold cream.

Poisonous Reptiles and Insects: Rattlesnakes, of the smaller varieties, range nearly all over the State. Wear high-top shoes or leggings for protection, use hands with care in climbing rocky places. Use tourniquet between bite and heart, releasing it occasionally to permit circulation; incise wound a quarter of an inch deep, suck out poison, but lips and mouth should be free of sores; pack incision with potassium permanganate crystals; give patient plenty of water, keep him warm

and quiet; get a doctor. Gila monster, with poisonous bite, found in lower parts of southern Utah; treatment same as for snake bite. Scorpions occur in rocks and deserts; their sting has about the same intensity as that of a hornet and is treated the same way--with a pinch of wet soda or a dab of ammonia. Tarantulas, huge black or brown spiders, occur in desert areas, but there is no record of anyone in Utah having been bitten by one. Black widow spiders, identifiable by red hourglass on abdomen, have serious poison bite; put patient to bed, give copious quantities of non-spirituous fluids, treat wound with iodine, get a doctor. Wood ticks, flat, brown insects about a quarter of an inch long, are carriers of Rocky Mountain spotted fever, a disease with a high mortality rate. Persons who frequent mountains, wooded sections, or even deserts should be inoculated against the fever. Infection may result after a tick penetrates the skin and feeds two hours or longer. Examine body frequently for ticks, remove those that have penetrated the skin with a steady straight pull, preferably with tweezers; outdoorsmen say a tick will back out of the skin if covered with a drop of turpentine or kerosene. If head pulls off, open skin and remove it, treating wound with a good disinfectant.