Intruder!

Okay, I have done a lot of camping in my day.  

I’ve hiked the Guadalupe Mountains of west Texas, and canoed a chunk of the Rio Grande.  I’ve circled Lake Superior.  I have pitched my tent in Yellowstone and Yosemite, Glacier and the Grand Tetons.  I spent my honeymoon backpacking in Alaska.  I am an experienced camper.  I’m familiar with wildlife.  There is very little that can happen in a tent or on a hike that will surprise me anymore, & I camp with kids so that’s saying something.

But the other day I was enjoying Yellowstone with my family, & I’ll admit it.  I was surprised. 

See, I was packing up the tent for the long drive home–sniffle, sob–and I discovered….this.  

Yep.  That there’s a hole in the bottom of the tent.  

It had been neatly chewed by sharp little teeth.  From the outside.

I know this because there was a corresponding hole in the ground cloth under the tent.  

A hole that overlaid a well-engineered tunnel that started about two feet from the edge of the tent and ended…well, directly between my sleeping bag & my 10 year old’s.  Her sleeping pad was chewed about half-way through before whatever this was decided the whole endeavor felt like a lot of work and gave up.   

Or did it?  

We never saw any evidence of an intruder, so I figured this must’ve happened on our last night.  The digger was trying to get out of the nightly rain, thought it would tunnel into this likely shelter, discovered large noisy people already in situ & abandoned ship.  But I was thinking about it on our twelve-hour drive home yesterday & it occurred to me that this hole might’ve been dug a few days earlier than I thought.

See, it rained almost every night, and my husband’s & my sleeping pads were turning up damp in the mornings.  A little dampness is pretty normal in a tent, but typically it’s around the edges.  Our dampness was dead in the center of the tent, while the edges remained dry.  We didn’t think much of it until later.  Until we knew there was a sizeable hole in the bottom of our tent that likely sent a good deal of moisture directly into our two sleeping pads.  

Or something.  So what if was no random thing, this hole, but a precisely engineered, well-hidden assault?  What if that clever chewer had a whole system worked out?  What if it routinely chewed into people’s tents and slept the day away in the comfort of a cozy sleeping back or (heaven forfend) curled on a pillow?  What if I had spent an entire week unwittingly sharing my PILLOW with a squirrel?

Animals are clever creatures, & those in Yellowstone were particularly wiley.  I would not put it past the wildlife to find some way to time-share my tent but I always assumed I would know when it happened.   Or when it was attempted.  

I had no clue. 

I think I’ve been played.

So how about you?  Have you ever had a wildlife encounter than was closer than you’d like?  I’d feel a lot better about sleeping with the squirrels if you’d share your own Wild Kingdom tale.