Granted I have only been in Utah since 2000 but I have never seen as many freakin "Hobo" spiders as I am seeing now. They are everywhere! I see them in approach gullies and even creeping along on main trails. I easily saw more than 20 last friday.
I was cleaning up an old route and watched one crawl down the cliff right next to me that was easily the size of a mans hand.
Has anyone else noticed? What's going on out there?

Oh Lord.... The size of a hand!? And what about the ants that look like blackberries? Our bugs, and our squirrels are on steroids.

I have no bug phobia but about 2 months ago I was climbing on the flying flatiron apparently during the nest building time for ants. At 2 belays I had the ants climbing all over me.

On the climb, I was placing pro in a crack and these things started to cover my hands. They then started biting! I have never been bitten by ants before. I probably would not have known I was being bitten if I did not see it. They latched their mandibles on to me and had their feet completely off of my skin with their bodies sticking straight up in the air. It made me climb a little faster.

I was feeling a little ill that day, this was just too much.