A Possum Ate My Brand New Tent

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In 1996 I did one of my first trips along Tasmania’s South Coast Track, with a brand new MacPac Olympus tent. On the last night I woke at three in the morning to holes chewed straight through the side of it. Possums. We had food sitting right up against the wall, and they'd smelled it and gone through the fabric to get to it. It was a brand new tent on a first trip and it now had holes in the side, so I wasn't popular.

You would think once was enough. In 2011 I was on the Western Arthur Range with another brand new tent, and one night I got tired and lazy and chucked a jacket against the side of the tent with some snacks still in the pocket. I woke up to a little rodent chewing its way in. Same mistake, fifteen years apart.

So when this came in with this week's readiness quiz answers, I knew how the reader felt. He wrote;

He did the sensible thing and packed a bit extra, and a possum still took two days of food on day eight. Then he asked the better question, which is whether there's a lighter answer. There is, and in Australia we are lucky.

Unlike many other parts of the world, here we don't have bears, so we can keep our food inside the tent with us. That's a big advantage if you store it properly, and my two brand new tents found that out the hard way.

A possum doesn't care that the food is inside your tent. It smells it through the wall, and the wall is thin. I've seen possums eat straight through tent fabric to get to a muesli bar.

Everything with a smell goes into one lightweight Dyneema food bag, including snacks, toothpaste and anything else a possum might think is worth a look. Anything edible in the pack pockets comes out and goes in the bag too.

Then the bag goes in the middle of the tent. If there are two of us it sits between us, and if I'm on my own I keep it as close to the middle as I can, away from the sides on the vestibule side of the tent.

That's the whole system, with no barrel and no special gear, and since that night on the Western Arthurs I haven't had an animal get into my food.

It also solves the reader's other problem. A hard container is just as bulky on day eight as on day one, while a bag gets smaller as you eat and weighs almost nothing.

If you walk where there are bears, this isn't your answer. A bear canister would be a good starting point and storing it correctly according to local guidelines.

The reader packed "a bit extra", and I do too. What matters is the shape the extra takes.

I always carry a little more food than I need, such as a couple of extra bars, a gel or a bag of trail mix as well as an extra freeze dried meal. If I'm delayed, I'm very glad of it. At night it goes in the food bag with everything else.

On longer walks I also pack a double-sized meal for the last night. If something goes wrong and I'm out longer than planned, I split it into two dinners. If everything goes to plan, I eat the lot, and on the last night I'm always hungry enough to manage it.

So the buffer is food you want to eat anyway, which means you're never carrying dead weight and hoping not to use it.

Say the worst happens. You wake up, there's a hole in the bag, and two days of food are gone.

Don't wait until the food runs out to deal with it. Start planning that morning, over whatever is left of breakfast. How many days to the car? What do you have left, counted, not guessed? Is there a shorter way out, a hut or a food drop?

Then slow the pace and make what you have last. That is what the buffer is for. A slower day on less food beats a fast day on none, and the double-sized meal is now two dinners.

Pack your food, then answer two questions out loud.

Where does this sleep at camp? If the answer is "in the pack" or "in the vestibule", change it now, before you're tired and it's dark.

Which of these is my buffer? If you can't point at it, add a double-sized last dinner and two bars you actually like, then forget they're there.

A possum may still turn up one night, but your food will be in the middle of the tent and the tent will still have no holes in it.

THAT’S ALL FOR THIS WEEK

Thanks for reading Mowser’s Musings. I hope this helps you hike further and happier.

Until next week, keep exploring.

Mowser

Discover more. Hike further.

P.S. Food and water was one of the weakest areas in this week's quiz answers, and it's the part of a plan an animal tests for you. If you'd rather find the thin spots before a trip does, the free Multi-Day Readiness Quiz shows where you stand across all six areas.

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