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.