After a bad experience of having all my socks stolen and my boots gnawed upon by salt-crazed deer, I always keep them in the vestibule. I figure nothing is more essential for getting me out of the wilderness than my footware. My pack I leave out, generally inside a garbage bag, though I do worry about having it chewed up (once a bear took a bite out of the hip belt padding). Of course nothing is necessarily safe even in a vestibule: a kea (a type of parrot in New Zealand) tried to drag my boot out my vestibule, with me watching only 18 inches away.