Marmots

Marmots are friendly little guys. Every Marmot I have ever seen allowed me to get very close. Those of you who live in the east may have never seen a Marmot. They are a very large rodent, like a really big ground squirrel. They eat whatever they can find, but really like trail mix. There is a Marmot on Half Dome that will steal your bag of trail mix right out of your pack if you turn your back for a moment. There are Marmots in Mineral King, a remote village in the Sierra Nevada’s that will eat through your radiator hose with their big beaver like teeth and drink the antifreeze. It doesn’t kill them because their metabolic rate is so fast and they burn it up before it becomes toxic. I always thought if they could drink enough antifreeze they wouldn’t have to hibernate. Here are a few pix for you.