I'm a heavy sleeper, and I sleep in a tent. I leave my poles outside in the vestibule, flat on the ground.

Very often, the next morning, I find that the midnight rodents have dragged one of my poles about a couple of yards away. My guess is that the tip of the pole must have gotten scented along the trail, and the squirrels thought it was a take home meal, then eventually lost interest.

Wondering if anyone has played around with setting up an intruder trigger alert system.

I was thinking of 10 yds of tooth floss string, tied to something like a bear bell, or a coin in a soda can.

enough to cause a rattle or jingle, that would scare off the thief rodent, and possibly wake me up to yell "who's out there"

I would be worried the little criters are after the salt (sweat) on your pole grips. Would hate to wake up the next morning with the grips chewed off.

....I can see it now....Roger Dodger woried about intruders and the state of his poles throughout the night....

It's likely due to the salty sweat deposits on the grips. They really like cork grips, almost like a salt lick to them. You could try put a stake through the wrist straps to keep them in place.

could just stab them in the dirt and keep them upright.

i agree with them being after the grips and straps.

If you really need an intruder alert system, here is what I use. At the arts and crafts store, I purchased a bag of jingle bells in assorted sizes. Using a heavy black nylon thread, I threaded several jingle bells at 2-foot intervals and tied each one.

Sometimes at night I string this up from my bear canister to my shelter so that I can hear the animals approaching. That's how I got my night photo of a wolverine.

It's fairly lightweight, but it isn't much good in the multiple use department.

--B.G.--

Photo of a wolverine?! That's awesome. Just this past weekend my buddy and I got to wake up in the middle of the night to a ringtail cat rustling through our camp. I may have to consider the jingle bell method for future trips.

The wolverine was near Stanley, Idaho, last June. The photo is somewhere here on BPL.

A ringtail cat would be nice. That's on my target list.

You can buy the jingle bells in different sizes, but the assorted bag gave me the most flexibility. The tiny bells are lighter in weight, but the bigger bells are louder. As a result, I made my string of them with different sizes.

If I am lazy, I just pile the bells on top of my bear canister. Normally if I think critters are really around, I will tape one end to the top of the bear canister and the other end to something on my shelter. So, I may hear the bells, or I may feel some vibration. You can also put all of your metal stuff (mug, spoon, etc.) on top of the bear canister, and it will fall over when nudged by the critters. But, you have to have your camera all laid out and ready to fire.

--B.G.--

Just tie your food bag to a tent pole. The movement will wake you. If the tent collapses know where you placed your toilet paper.