[pct-l] Bear encounter before Kennedy Meadows, and other critter stories

[Maxine Weyant]

Here's an idea!  Put an empty, never-used Opsak in the same campsite where the mice chewed through the Opsak mentioned earlier and see if they just chew it anyway.   Or put a roll of toilet parer in it.  Mice chew on everything--wires, wood, insulation, paper, you name it.  They seem to like plastic bags and what's in them, based on the thievery I witnessed with the packrats and trail mice at campsites along the PCT.  They may have little pea-brains, but they seem to get habituated to humans as quickly as bears.  It could even be a visual cue that led the rodents to chew through odor-proof bags.  

We blame a lot of things on mice when it could be any number of chewy varmints like Douglas squirrels, marmots, porcupines, martens, mountain beavers, skunks, even deer, depending where you're at.  Marmots like to chew on backpack shoulder straps and hiking pole straps for the salt.  In Washington, in August, the deer crave salt so much, they'll chew a hikers t-shirt hanging up to dry and run off with a sock, and they'll dig a huge hole to eat the soil where you just peed.  I've met 2 different guys who had a deer practically knock them over trying to get it "straight from the tap!"  

I also had a friend who was cowboy-camping and drank some hot chocolate before bed,  and she was awakened by a raccoon licking her lips (I believe that's called coonie-lingus.)

Dys-feng shui-nal