Two young marmots play in a mountain meadow as one of the adults of the colony looks on. While this adult had the typical lighter coloring, many others had a preponderance of dark fur and I suspect one of them may have been the parent of the black-faced youngster climbing down the rock.

We came across this colony in the early fall beside the Skyline Trail in Mount Rainier. You can see how chubby even the youngsters are at this time of the year as they prepare to hibernate through the long winter on the mountain. Despite being wrapped in waddling clothes, the marmots move with surprising speed when they want to, bursting across the talus fields with a speed that belies their bellies.