This hiker's worst nightmare

Since the whole fever/tired thing kind of got in the way of weekend water plans, I instead read two books in those 48 hours, both having to do with hiking/backpacking and/or the Appalachian Trail. I am continuing to dream about doing a long trek of some sorts soon (next summer?) and reading is only spurring me along. (And instilling some "I hope he's not serious about this!" fear in my mom as she sees me pursuing it).

In my weekend reading though, the thing that turned me off about all the warnings and what not was...mice. Yeah, I didn't see that one coming. Turns out that they're all over the Appalachian Trail and there's not much you can do about them. They scrounge around everywhere looking for crumbs. You even have to leave all the zippers on your pack open at night so they are free to crawl in and explore at will, saving your pack from being chewed open! (cause they're going to get in one way or another.) Then they of course, after the open invitation to explore, are free to leave their droppings inside.

Ok, bears...no problem. Any other critter...no problem. Water that needs to be purified, the possible snake, nasty insects, etc...bring it on! But I don't like rodents and I'm rather feece of dozens of mice crawling, biting, and depositing their thimbles of piss and rice size crap in my stuff!