Back in the fall I spent the afternoon watching the large colony of marmots at the end of the Summerland Trail in Mount Rainier National Park, but it wasn’t until the tail end of my day that I spotted this youngster, the only young one I saw on the day. It was so much smaller than the other marmots that I’d guess that it had been born in the spring and was about to face its first winter.

As the sun disappeared behind the mountains, some of the marmots started to head up towards what I assume was their home in the rocks above the trail. When the little one jumped down to follow, it landed on an unstable rock that crashed loudly onto the rocks below. The other marmots rose and froze to attention while the youngster sprinted up and away. I’m so jealous of how marmots speed across a jumbled talus field compared to my slow plodding even on the open trail that it was nice to see that even they occasionally put a foot wrong.