I stepped out of the car in the gloom just before dawn and for the first time in some months I thought of my down jacket.

That garment languishes for the better part of most summers on the post that forms one corner of the lodgepole pine bed frame that my brother, Michael, assembled many years ago.

The black fabric collects a fair smattering of dust during its vacation.

(The production of dust is an aspect of indoor living that fascinates me. I have a vague memory of reading, in a source whose credibility I can’t gauge, that a significant percentage of dust is composed of dead skin cells, mites and bits of insects. This fact ought to bother me more than it does. And probably would except that, as with the down jacket, I rarely think of it.)

The insulating capacities of down, so gratifying on a sub-zero morning in January, are of course unnecessary in seasons when the sun rides higher in the sky.

I do not wish to start sweating before daybreak.

Between the summer solstice and the autumnal equinox I typically rely instead on a fleece jacket.

It would only temporarily stave off hypothermia and frostbite after an arctic front has barged through Baker County, temporarily transforming our weather into something far closer to polar than equatorial.

But the fleece tempers quite well the gentle chill which can briefly intrude on Baker City mornings even during the apex of summer.

There are many mild dawns, to be sure, during July and August when I eschew even the fleece.

(It occupies the same bedpost, and so spares the down coat, which it covers, from a bit of the dust it would otherwise accumulate.)

But along about Labor Day, with the longer nights and predictably lower temperatures, I generally don the fleece jacket each morning. This action divides my weekday morning routine into its diametrically opposed segments, coming after I brush away the night’s buildup of bacteria from my teeth but just before I prepare to expose my enamel anew by dumping sugar and a dollop of sweet cream elixir into my coffee.

On the morning of Sept. 14 I zipped the fleece jacket as usual. I had left the bedroom window open, as is our custom during summer, and the air had a keen feel, as I walked past the window, which is utterly lacking during a heatwave.

But it wasn’t until I started walking across Second Street toward my office that I regretted my choice of outerwear.

Not that it was painfully cold.

The temperature, according to the thermometer in the car, was 42.

But the wind often gets a trifle gusty downtown — even the modest stature of Baker City’s architecture can create a sort of funnel effect — and I instinctively turned my face downward, brushing my jaw against the warm fleece.

The sensation was brief, lasting only until I reached the shelter of a building that cut the wind.

But I sensed in those chill moments the coming of the real cold, as certain in our mountain valley as the snow that will transform the Elkhorns and the Wallowas.

— — —

I don’t recall even now, despite reliving the moment in my mind multiple times since, whether I saw the yellow missiles erupt from the pile of bark first, or felt the pain.

The pain was sharp and immediate, like nothing so much as an injection from a hypodermic needle.

But I wasn’t sitting in a padded seat in a clinic.

I was in the Eagle Cap Wilderness, looking for fire tinder.

I retreated with the speed that only panic can make possible. I managed somehow to avoid tripping over a log or rock, something I often manage to do even when I have all my mental faculties.

I was hiking on the trail to Echo Lake, along West Eagle Creek, with my wife, Lisa, and our son, Max.

We were crossing the creek — one of two places where hikers have to wade, as bridges are not a priority for the Forest Service along this trail — when Max slipped on a wet boulder and soaked both shoes.

We decided to build a small fire to at least partially dry Max’s footwear.

The blaze was burning nicely, but I have developed over the years the unshakable belief that bark is the best fuel once the flames have taken to the kindling.

I looked around and saw a pile of thick, dry bark chunks at the base of a snag. I think it was a Douglas-fir.

I have no such uncertainty about the species of venom-laden insects that erupted from the nest they had cleverly concealed beneath the bark.

The yellowjackets defended their home with an alacrity that would have been more impressive but for the painful pricks that were nearly simultaneous on my legs.

Fortunately they didn’t pursue me far.

Lisa and Max were unscathed — well, except for Max’s wet feet.

The sting sites swelled immediately, though not so much as the few times I’ve gotten in the way of a bald-faced hornet. Hornet venom, at least for me, is more potent.

I tried to dab the stings with mud, but here the geology of the Wallowas foiled my backwoods medicine. The bedrock is granitic, which erodes not into thick, pasty mud but rather coarse sand, which makes for a poor poultice. The sand, chilled by the stream, was at least soothing for a few seconds.

The stings itched occasionally for the better part of a week.

This was annoying, of course. But I took solace in the memories. Every time I applied a salve to the red spots I thought not of yellowjackets but of the Wallowas, whose beauty is in no way marred by the occasional insectile treachery.