  It is unknown whether an unknotting tunnel is always isotopic to a geodesic
in a finite volume hyperbolic 3-manifold. In this paper, we address the
generalization of this problem to hyperbolic 3-manifolds admitting tunnel
systems. We show that there exist finite volume hyperbolic 3-manifolds with a
single cusp, with a system of at least two tunnels, such that all but one of
the tunnels come arbitrarily close to self-intersecting. This gives evidence
that systems of unknotting tunnels may not be isotopic to geodesics in tunnel
number n manifolds. In order to show this result, we prove there is a
geometrically finite hyperbolic structure on a (1;n)-compression body with a
system of core tunnels such that all but one of the core tunnels
self-intersect.
