The sound of chewing woke me up. Again.
My husband and I were backpacking the Teton Crest Trail, and something was nibbling away outside our tent.
“Gnaw gnaw gnaw. Gnaw gnaw gnaw.”
The critter, whatever it was, was persistent. The first time I’d heard it, I discovered it’d pulled my sock out of my boot and gnawed it.
The second time, I heard it clearly, but it fled the scene before I could get a glimpse.
This time, though, I was determined. I held my flashlight and slowly opened the tent, pausing to ensure the gnawing sound continued. It did.
I quickly flipped back the tent flap, turned on the light and …
“It’s a porcupine! And it’s chewing on your stick!”
The porcupine looked at me, indignant to be interrupted in what was clearly a delicious late-night snack. He stared at me defiantly — or I assume that’s how he looked, porcupines have a small range of expressions — before slowly waddling away. No need to move fast when your entire body is covered in weapons.
I grabbed our walking sticks and made room for them in the tent.
It was totally silent now, and I should have fallen back asleep immediately.
Instead I stayed awake, annoying Jerry as I imitated the voice of a porcupine.
“Ooh, fine imported wood! Marinated in years of hiker sweat. This is a fine luxury.”
I finally stopped when he started snoring. He has no appreciation for fine humor.
The next morning we closely inspected our sticks. The porcupine had gnawed where we hold the sticks; he was clearly going for the salt of our sweat. We didn’t really mind, the gnaw marks actually improved our grip.
And each time we passed our fellow hikers, we had a good story when they asked “See any wildlife?”
* Important note: This isn’t just any stick. My husband and I have a pair of truly perfect wooden walking sticks we picked up on our very first backpacking trip together. They aren’t fancy but they have traveled many wonderful miles with us and we are very fond of them — even more so now that they are such an excellent prop for our porcupine story.
* Second important note: Did you know baby porcupines are called porcupettes? And they’re adorable.
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