View Full Version : Mice in shelters
jorhawle
09-09-2009, 07:59
What time of year do the mice usually stop fiddling around in the shelters? Ever?
warraghiyagey
09-09-2009, 08:02
http://www.deadbee.org/violin.jpg
http://www.deadbee.org/violin.jpg
3 minutes. Impressive!
Mice move on when people stop feeding them and they must begin to work a little harder at finding food. Shelters would be a better place to sleep were people to refrain from eating there, but I'm not hopeful they will stop anytime soon.
Tennessee Viking
09-09-2009, 08:23
Mice are at shelters all year. The warmer months they will make their presence known. During the cold months, they will retreat under the platforms, nest in the rafters, or burrow around the shelter.
OldStormcrow
09-09-2009, 08:45
The only time that they are completely inactive is on February 29th......except every fourth year.
Gray Blazer
09-09-2009, 08:54
What time of year do the mice usually stop fiddling around in the shelters? Ever?
They will stop fiddling only if you break all their strings and they run out of cat gut. If you break their bows they will still finger pick.
(What do you expect from a moron?)
I really don't mind the fiddling, but when they start to sing . . . oh my!
I don't mind the fiddle playing. It's when they get the brass section...
CLICK (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKH3iemEd-A)
barefoot
09-09-2009, 11:03
Overmountain Shelter. 10 Degrees one winter night! Mice still running around. I will never stay in a shelter again because of mice. They give me the creeps just hearing them scampering around.
No such thing as mice in shelters. Just a rumor started by cranky old men.
Kerosene
09-09-2009, 12:02
Overmountain Shelter. 10 Degrees one winter night! Mice still running around. I will never stay in a shelter again because of mice. They give me the creeps just hearing them scampering around.Don't start tenting until you have one of them run across your face in the middle of the night. Better yet, stay at a shelter with a resident wood rat who likes to nibble on the salt in a sleeping hiker's hair (Manassas Gap Shelter, 2001)!
Two Speed
09-09-2009, 12:22
Seeing as this is in the Greater Smoky Mountain National Park forum I'm gonna assume the OP wants info specific to the AT there.
Did the north half of the Smokies in mid-January about 5 years ago. Mice were active in Pecks Corner, Tri-Corner and Cosby Knob shelters despite night time temps in the teens or single digits.
Short version: they appear to be active through the winter.
I stayed at the Ed Garvey shelter in Maryland August 13.Did not see any mice.Another section hiker told me the mice were only bad in the south.Don't know if that's true or not because I had never been on the AT this far north and on my southern trips were never in winter.
YoungMoose
09-09-2009, 15:51
They are there all the time. They are just much much more active during the summer months as well as the thru-hiker season
OldStormcrow
09-09-2009, 16:16
When it gets to be about 10 below in the Smokies the mice get really bold and desperate. "Back in the day" when the mice and I were always alone in the backcountry shelters in the winter, it would get like an Alfred Hitchcock movie. When they are at the point of either perishing from the cold, or eating you or your food they become quite fearless. They will surround you like a crowd of angry Lilliputians and try to drag you to the floor......
TIDE-HSV
09-09-2009, 18:41
When it gets to be about 10 below in the Smokies the mice get really bold and desperate. "Back in the day" when the mice and I were always alone in the backcountry shelters in the winter, it would get like an Alfred Hitchcock movie. When they are at the point of either perishing from the cold, or eating you or your food they become quite fearless. They will surround you like a crowd of angry Lilliputians and try to drag you to the floor......
LOL! I have had one eat the other end of a Snicker bar which I had lodged against my nose (forgot to hang it) for safe keeping. Last month, in Laurel Gap shelter, one kept tickling my nose and I kept swatting at it. What was going on was I had a camper's roll of TP right by my face and they were robbing the paper for nesting material...
Blue Jay
09-09-2009, 18:48
LOL! I have had one eat the other end of a Snicker bar which I had lodged against my nose (forgot to hang it) for safe keeping. Last month, in Laurel Gap shelter, one kept tickling my nose and I kept swatting at it. What was going on was I had a camper's roll of TP right by my face and they were robbing the paper for nesting material...
You just made half the posters of WB faint dead away.
TIDE-HSV
09-09-2009, 19:01
My wife is so desensitized, she didn't understand the "why" of your post when I repeated it to her... :D
The house mouse evolved to live with humans. Mice live in shelters because people live in shelters.
Panzer
jorhawle
09-10-2009, 08:35
There was a guy in a shelter I was with in July that had toilet paper down by his feet when he went to bed. When he woke up in the morning the mice had built a nice little nest for themselves out of it......RIGHT BY HIS HEAD! LOL, the funny thing, he slept right through it!
I found that if I light a uco candle lantern at bed time with one of those 8 hour candles and hang it from the rafters the mice seem to stay away. I have done this for years and never had it fail me yet. It also helps you keep from stepping on other hikers when you get up to pee in the middle of the night as most of us over 40 hikers have to do.
Look at it this way........
Mice are just like thru-hikers. They just want a place to stay warm, dry, and have something to eat.
And if you listen closely you'll hear them yelling "Trail Magic!" after finding a morsel of food on the shelter floor.
TIDE-HSV
09-11-2009, 10:46
I usually - as recently as 2 weeks ago - see them running around the shelter in the AM, late afternoon and even the middle of the day. Hard to see why a candle would bother them...
I noticed the further north of Harpers Ferry you went the less mice you saw in shelters this year.
One even stole an ear plug out of my ear as I lay sleeping in the Rock Gap shelter. Varmint!
-Spokes
stranger
09-11-2009, 11:46
They are in every shelter but you might not hear or see them every night. Even if you hang your food and pack they will run around looking for food all night long, so they are a nuisance. Your best bet to avoid them is to sleep with your head towards the shelter opening if you insist on using shelters. Often the mice are in the firepits, so you might not see them in the shelter but once lights are out they make their way in. I've seen alot of mice in the rocks of firepits at shelters.
I haven't slept in a shelter by choice more than a few times over the past 7-8 years. I would rather have 100% of the space in my tent or tarp then 10% of the space of a shelter - plus, never woke to a mouse running around in my tent or under my tarp.
Although... haha. I had a dream once that a mouse was in my tent and that was amusing when I awoke and started looking for it. I think I was still half asleep. They are certainly entertaining, but is that what you are looking for when you want to sleep?
jorhawle
09-11-2009, 12:43
I found that if I light a uco candle lantern at bed time with one of those 8 hour candles and hang it from the rafters the mice seem to stay away. I have done this for years and never had it fail me yet. It also helps you keep from stepping on other hikers when you get up to pee in the middle of the night as most of us over 40 hikers have to do.
Is it the scent that distracts them? What does uco stand for?
Mice move on when people stop feeding them and they must begin to work a little harder at finding food. Shelters would be a better place to sleep were people to refrain from eating there, but I'm not hopeful they will stop anytime soon.
I thought alot of people do what i was planning to do.. find a nice dinner spot a few miles from the shelter, cook,eat ,freshen up a bit ( rinse excess grease from hair and make sure your not overly sweaty tromping in) then stroll in for the evening
There are no mice in NJ shelters because they all have bear boxes - all the food goes in the boxes and because there is no food in the shelters there are no mice. All shelters should have bear boxes.
Wise Old Owl
09-11-2009, 16:04
I don't see the problem
http://floridarivers.ifas.ufl.edu/Elissa/mouse.JPG
gearfreak
09-11-2009, 17:56
There are no mice in NJ shelters because they all have bear boxes - all the food goes in the boxes and because there is no food in the shelters there are no mice. All shelters should have bear boxes.
A fella at the GSMNP backcountry information office mentioned the same thing to me. With bear cables being used at all the shelters the resident mouse populations have greatly diminished. Perhaps the shelters with tin can contraptions and food bags hanging from all the rafters are the worse for it. I'll find out when I hike the park northbound starting 9/19. :cool:
TIDE-HSV
09-11-2009, 22:28
Having hiked in the GSMNP since the early 70s, I do believe that the mouse population is down and I agree that the food being stored outside on the cables is the reason. Of course, on my last three trips, my food hanging on the cables has been victimized by mice, despite my homemade mouse guards...
gunner76
10-04-2009, 20:38
Maybe instead of complaining about the mice we could figure out a way to catch and eat them. Just think of weight savings of not having to carry all that un needed food when dinner is already waiting for us at the shelters. http://whiteblaze.net/forum/images/icons/icon7.gif
Jack Tarlin
10-04-2009, 20:44
Bear boxes for food storage might help the problem, but it doesn't cure it.
People eat, snack, cook, etc. in shelters. Anywhere there is food there are going to be mice, and this includes the shelters in New Jersey.
The only 100% guaranteed way to avoid shelter mice is to also avoid shelters.
Lone Wolf
10-04-2009, 20:45
the problem with scotland is it's full of scots!
modiyooch
10-04-2009, 20:55
I thought alot of people do what i was planning to do.. find a nice dinner spot a few miles from the shelter, cook,eat ,freshen up a bit ( rinse excess grease from hair and make sure your not overly sweaty tromping in) then stroll in for the eveningThat doesn't work for the hikers that choose the shelter for the table, fire pit and water.
modiyooch
10-04-2009, 20:59
I can't even enjoy shelters in the day anymore because the fat nocturnal varmits now rule the roost in the day.
cowboy nichols
10-04-2009, 21:08
Mice don't hibernate!!
Since this is in the Smokies forum, I'll try to address the Smokies shelters specifically.
Mice are there year-round, but they are not as bad as they used to be in shelters with the open front and porches. I can best guess that people now cook at the fire ring or the front edge of the porch, not inside the shelter. For this reason, mice spend more looking for crumbs well forward of the sleeping deck. Combined with hanging food on the bear cables, mice weren't bad when my wife and I hiked the Smokies AT in the summer of 08.
They were bad even in the dead of winter (January 1999) back when everyone cooked inside the chain link fences.
DaveJohns
10-04-2009, 22:17
I don't see the problem
http://floridarivers.ifas.ufl.edu/Elissa/mouse.JPG
he was just slack packing to the next shelter.
LOL! I have had one eat the other end of a Snicker bar which I had lodged against my nose (forgot to hang it) for safe keeping. Last month, in Laurel Gap shelter, one kept tickling my nose and I kept swatting at it. What was going on was I had a camper's roll of TP right by my face and they were robbing the paper for nesting material...
Hope not the same mice at Cosby Knob last nov that were recycling tp from the privy.
Trailweaver
10-05-2009, 17:59
I recently stayed (in my cosy little tent) close to a shelter and in the middle of the night heard two grown men hollering about the mice running around them while they were trying to sleep in the shelter! It was soooo funny.
gunner76
10-09-2009, 21:02
My son's boy scout troop always went to Camp Daniel Boone ( southern NC)and we were always entertained each night by the mice in the shelters there. so they are every where
Jim Adams
10-09-2009, 21:37
Have never had a mouse problem...course the cat kept me awake some nights!
geek
dreamsoftrails
10-09-2009, 23:12
What time of year do the mice usually stop fiddling around in the shelters? Ever?
mice at shelters are a rare occurence, not worth thinking about.
saimyoji
10-10-2009, 07:57
the problem with scotland is it's full of scots!
so you're saying you want to breed them out? i knew your penchant for squirrels, but mice too? good luck.
Did SOBO trip through Smokies end of September. The mice were pretty good in almost all shelters. There were a couple of shelters I was nervous about because of the piles of rocks on the sleeping decks. I assume that was some folks trying to feel safe about bears...
Sour
sliderule
10-13-2009, 19:35
There were a couple of shelters I was nervous about because of the piles of rocks on the sleeping decks. I assume that was some folks trying to feel safe about bears...
Sour
I shared a shelter with a couple of college girls once. They gathered up rocks because they thought I was a threat!!!
Wise Old Owl
10-13-2009, 21:38
Maybe instead of complaining about the mice we could figure out a way to catch and eat them. Just think of weight savings of not having to carry all that un needed food when dinner is already waiting for us at the shelters. http://whiteblaze.net/forum/images/icons/icon7.gif
And I thought cornish game hens were a waste of time.... :-?
Mice never stop fiddling around. They just lie in wait lurking with Chuck Norris.
Mice need love too!
Mice are just like thru-hikers. They just want a place to stay warm, dry, and have something to eat.
And if you listen closely you'll hear them yelling "Trail Magic!" after finding a morsel of food on the shelter floor.
That's right! I've heard it too. They were standing in a circle around a half eaten Snickers on their lttle mice hind legs singing joyfully in unison like those little Whoville people during Christmas.
Doooglas
10-14-2009, 05:34
One more vote for a hammock...........
SunnyWalker
10-16-2009, 11:51
Let's trap them and sell them as pets. "Smoky Mtn AT Mice"! The REAL thing. We could call them: "Mice AT Smoky Mtns"!
sheepdog
10-16-2009, 12:41
One more vote for a hammock...........
me too.......
Eat away from where you are sleeping and hope that the others in the shelter do the same and the mouse problem will be ended. I stayed in a shelter earlier this year and the guy next to me had a candy bar next to his head while he was asleep. Got to hear nibbling sounds all night. He slept through it but the next day was shocked to see his candybar had been compromised:) Surprise!
sheepdog
10-24-2009, 16:48
Good idea but will never happen.
You would also have to hang you food away from the shelter.
I think there would still be mice.
Wise Old Owl
10-24-2009, 17:38
Them' fighting words Sheepdog Ya got gloves?
http://i250.photobucket.com/albums/gg275/MarkSwarbrick/mouse-final.jpg
I'm kidding......
All the shelters have steal cable pulleys to hang your whole pack including your food. If everyone did that we would not have the mice problems.
One even stole an ear plug out of my ear as I lay sleeping in the Rock Gap shelter. Varmint!
-Spokes
That's one of the funniest mouse stories I ever heard.
Panzer:)
sheepdog
10-25-2009, 08:52
Them' fighting words Sheepdog Ya got gloves?
http://i250.photobucket.com/albums/gg275/MarkSwarbrick/mouse-final.jpg
I'm kidding......
LOL, will he fight me with one paw tied behind his back??:D
Mice are the most inactive on the 12th........of Never!!!!....Seriously, if you remove what they want, that is, food, then your chances of being bothered go way down. The problem lies in the one hiker who thinks his brand new $400 pack is scent proof-it wasn't! Now I have a perfect mouse shaped hole in the side of my new pack....my fault entirely. Hang your entire pack on the bear cables!!!! Word to the wise.