Some of the southbounders started carrying traps as well. Here is the result of a night's work.
Thursday, November 26, 2009
Mice
Especially along the southern part of the Appalachian Trail, it is common to find shelters infested with mice. People seem to leave enough food scraps that they want to live there. If they get hungry enough, they will even eat paper and sometimes the registration books are partly eaten up. To avoid having food eaten by mice during the night, people hang their food bags on a contraption shown here. The mice cannot get down the string and around the upside-down can.
One solution is to carry a few mouse traps. One northbound thru hiker this year got the trail name 10x10 because at one shelter he caught 10 mice before 10pm. He must have been popular with the other hikers!
Some of the southbounders started carrying traps as well. Here is the result of a night's work.
Some of the southbounders started carrying traps as well. Here is the result of a night's work.
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I'm commenting about 18 months after this was originally posted. The comments about the mice caught my attention. I bought a protective mouse proof food bag called a Grubpack. They are made of a flexible wire mesh material. You put your food in the bag and the mice and other rodents can't gnaw through it. They are light and easy to carry. I bought mine online in '09 for a 5 day AT hike. Not a single animal problem with my food.
ReplyDeleteWhen i hiked the trail for a month i saw several hikers make a "mouse sacrifice" They placed a few squares of toilet paper in the corner and the mice spent all night shredding it.
ReplyDelete-- Butter