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One night on the AT in Shenandoah, a porcupine chewed through my food bag and I ended up sharing ramen with strangers at 2am
Last October I did a three day solo stretch on the Appalachian Trail through Shenandoah, and the second night is still the best night I have ever had on a trail. I hung my food bag on a decent branch about 12 feet up, felt good about it, went to sleep around 9. Woke up at 1:30 to this weird scratching sound and shined my headlamp up there, and a porcupine was just sitting on the branch chewing a hole straight through the bottom of my bag. By the time I got it down, my oatmeal packet was shredded and there were Quaker oats all over the dirt, so I had basically nothing left for the last day. I wandered over to the shelter nearby feeling sorry for myself, and there were these two thru hikers named Maple and Dunkin who had already seen the whole thing happen from their spots. Dunkin just laughed and pulled out a pack of ramen and said "sit down, we got plenty." We ended up boiling water on his pocket rocket at 2 in the morning, eating ramen with way too much hot sauce, and talking until almost 4 about stupid trail stuff like the worst blisters we ever got. Something about being cold and hungry and then getting saved by total strangers makes a night stick with you. Anyway, has anyone else had a food bag disaster out there, and did you figure out a hang setup that actually keeps the critters off?
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