The Tale of the Ute Trail

Since Laura and I had such good luck finding marmots (aka walking meatloafs - as our friend Megan Chesser has dubbed them) on the Ute trail this weekend, I decided to go marmot hunting again yesterday.  The weather was perfect, and, as usual, being more than a quarter mile from the road negated the idiot tourist presence in the area.

No sooner had I lost sight of the road, a very agreeable and photogenic meatloaf appeared crossing the trail ahead of me.  I moved past him without causing him fright and set up to hopefully take some pictures.  He obliged with a good posing session.

At one point he must have had an itch as he scratched himself sort of like a cat.

I left him and continued down the trail, seeing a few less agreeable marmots and a handful of elk on the way.  I hiked up a short ways to the ridge, and on the way down spotted this guy chillin' out on a rock:

He seemed quite enthralled by the spectacular views of the Continental Divide, and was quite happy to have me photograph him.

As I continued back towards the trail, I spotted this marmot doing what marmots do best:

I think these marmots have especially poor eyesight, as I am often able to get quite close to them.  Or perhaps they really like posing.  He finally figured something was up, and rewarded me with this awesome scoping things out pose:

Actually, this marmot looks like a she!!!

I left her alone and headed back down the trail to my car as it was windy and quite cold when you weren't moving.  I nearly walked right into this marmot:

It was sniffing and munching at this sandy spot.  Perhaps there was salt or minerals here?  Actually, now that I think about it, I may have peed here earlier.....

Anyway, here is where it goes from awesome to ridiculously bonkers!!  Another marmot darts right past me and gets on this rock a couple of feet away:

Then he charges the other marmot!!!

He was definitely bigger in size than the first marmot, and the smaller marmot was making very unhappy sounding noises as they ran around.  I wasn't sure if they were squabbling over territory, or the bigger marmot was trying to get it on.  If he was trying to get it on, the other marmot wanted nothing to do with him.  They ran underneath a rock and I kept hearing angry noises for about 30 seconds, until the smaller marmot flew out of the crevice, right past my foot.  Here is where I saved the first marmot.  The bigger marmot saw me and didn't want to come out of the hole.  He peaked his head out at me a few times (he was so close I couldn't even get a picture), and then finally disappeared.  James: 1, Big Fat Meatloaf: 0.

At this point I decided to head off and explore elsewhere.  I saw these bipeds in their natural habitat: the paved trail.

Sadly no marmots here, though the interpretive signs would have you believe otherwise.  I did get this cool photo of the awesomely named Mummy Range:

Finally, I left the National Park behind for the plains and Laura's farmshare veggie pick-up. I hadn't had my fill of western sciuridae, so on the way back I stopped to check out some prairie dogs.  There is a spot by the road where you can stop and get very close to them, without even getting out of the car.  I figured if I shot them from the car they wouldn't be scared of me.  After some fright and confusion thanks to my predator looking car, I got them to behave like prairie dogs: alert and vigilant.

Sadly, this concludes my marmot hunting tale.  More beast sightings will surely follow.

National Park Beast Extravaganza

Recently, Laura and I hiked up the Ute Trail in Rocky Mountain National Park (RMNP).  We started by the Deer Mountain trailhead, hiked down to the Beaver Meadows area and then up to Trail Ridge Road, which had just opened for the season.  The plan was then to hitchhike back to our car. Here we are driving past one of the massive drifts that had to be cleared:

Shortly into our hike, we saw three coyotes in the distance moving through a meadow ahead of us.  A little further up the trail we saw elk lying down in the shade of the trees.  Laura spotted a baby elk amongst the grownups.  We watched as it went over to its mother and got itself some tasty milk.

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Here they are walking away, post refreshment:

We did our best to thread our way past the elk, as they were close on both sides of the trail.  After a very strenuous snowshoe through the woods from 10,000 to 11,000 feet (apparently no one else had been on this trail yet), we emerged above the trees, onto the ridge, and found ourselves in marmot city.  This marmot was literally strolling towards us on the trail:

He would stop, look around, munch some grass, and then keep moving towards us.  Finally he decided to move off the trail, and did some awesome posing for our benefit.

I looked up and saw this other marmot nearby inspecting things from above:

I even saw one standing on its hind legs to check things out, but wasn't able to get a good picture.  Finally, we saw these elk kickin' it way up the mountain:

It was kind of surprising to me, because they were so far from the valley.

The week before we saw some super awesome elk by the side of the road between Estes Park and RMNP.  They had some nice racks!!!

This elk was on the opposite side of the road:

These stupid people had their kid pose right in front of the elk.  I was hoping for a bloody ending, but the elk just wanted to eat.  Had it been the fall and mating season, there may have been a different ending.  Both of these elk were photographed from the safety of a Geo Prizm.

Earlier in the day we saw this good looking elk in the park by the side of the road (though he definitely needs to get his rack game stronger):

We also saw this tasty grouse while hiking that day.  I probably could have captured it and had myself a delicious meal!!

Finally here are some ridiculous bighorn sheep we saw while our friend Anna was visiting:

We also saw a couple of babies at a different location, but they were too far away to photograph.

Beast sitings have been absolutely off the chart in the national park lately!  It is totally ridiculous!!  Tomorrow I plan to go looking for more marmots.  I really would like to see some babies, but it might be a little too early for that.