This pika’s apparent forked tongue consists of two long blades of grass it was eating, holding on to them only with its mouth in typical pika fashion.

When I visited Mount Rainier National Park last fall, I saw more pikas on the the Pinnacle Peak Trail than I’ve ever seen on a trail before. It would only be a slight exaggeration to say I saw more pikas on the trail than I had seen in my entire life until then. They weren’t all close to the trail, the talus fields are extensive and often lead far from the trail, but some of them were close enough for pictures, including this pika that popped out of a rock wall near sunset.

As I watched this hoary marmot, it kept turning and looking up over its shoulder. I could hear something rummaging around up and out-of-sight on the hillside but was surprised to see the marmot paying it so much attention.

The source of the noise was revealed when this pika popped out and ran across the trail with twigs from several different plants in its mouth. It paused briefly before continuing into the talus field to store away its treasure for the winter, then returned to the hillside for more plundering.

Later in the day I discovered their caution was well founded …

It’s hard not to be jealous of how well-adapted some animals are to their environment. It was a little humbling to watch these tiny little pikas sprinting across the talus field with plants in their mouths. I don’t think I’d be quite so quick if I had to drag several 12 foot tall trees in my mouth as I ran across a boulder field with rocks as big as a school bus.

Everyone’s a comedian.

Taken during the All American Pika Variety Hour on Mount Rainier’s Pinnacle Peak Trail.

This is yet another picture of the pika from the Palisades Lakes Trail in Mount Rainier National Park. Here it decided to eat the plants it brought back rather than store them for the winter.

I had a number of opportunities to watch pikas eating on this trip and realized something I had never noticed before: pikas don’t use their hands when they eat. Many mammals will use their front paws to guide plant stems into their mouths, but pikas pick up the entire stem with their mouth and eat a little bit at a time until the entire stem is gone. In this case, the stem was so long that the pika chewed the middle first to break it into two parts and then ate each part separately.

This was one of those times that I really wished my camera could capture video, the still pictures don’t do justice to how fascinated I was watching the pika devour these plants without ever raising a paw.

This is the same pika that I denied a taste of my mango, as you can see it was quite adept at finding food on its own. It had just sprinted across the talus field with these twigs in its mouth, it paused for a moment and straddled these rocks before disappearing below.

“Hey everybody, Boolie is a rat fink who won’t share his mango!”

In the interest of full disclosure, while pikas are vocal little things this one isn’t calling out, it’s finishing up some of the plants it was eating. In pika society it’s OK to chew with your mouth open.

Ever since first seeing pikas in the Tetons, I always choose some of my hikes on my Wyoming trips to go into terrain where I might glimpse these little mammals. So it should be no surprise that I chose many of my hikes on my trip to Mount Rainier to put me into the land of marmots and pikas. At first I had only near misses at pictures as pikas scampered along the Sourdough Ridge Trail, dragging plants down into their homes under the rocks. But at the end of my first full day of hiking, the Palisades Lakes Trail blessed me in abundance.

I stopped at a talus field near the end of the trail for some water and snacks, hoping that a pika might poke its head out from the rocks while I rested. I had heard but not seen them in the area as I passed by at the start of the hike, but it wasn’t long after I opened my water bottle that this pika first appeared. It was busy adding plants to its cache under the rocks, occasionally stopping to eat a little. I took a number of pictures while it was active, spending almost half an hour watching it as it gathered food. During the stretches where it was out of sight, I swapped the camera for my water bottles.

I took me a while to quench my thirst as I picked up the camera any time the pika popped up, but eventually during a quiet stretch I turned my attention to my hunger and brought out my bag of snacks. We had picked up some dried mango slices shortly before I left, I had never tried them before but they immediately became my favorite treat of the trip. As I started into the mango the pika suddenly reappeared, so I closed up the bag and set it a nearby rock before picking up the camera for more pictures.

The pika kept ducking in and out of the rocks, classic pika behavior, but I could hardly believe my eyes when I realized that the pika was actually working its way in my direction. The little thing was soon too close for pictures so I just stood baffled by such a close encounter. I soon realized its intention as it shuffled over towards my snack bag and sniffed around. I eased over and took the bag away, having just watched it store away a variety of plant life I feared my dried fruit was about to be added to the cache and enjoyed all winter long by my furry friend.

It hung around for a little while, almost at arm’s reach but always with an escape route into the rocks. The timing was probably coincidence, but when I finished the mango it either lost interest in the remaining fruit or realized I wasn’t going to share and headed back up the slope. I finished my snack and hoped for more pictures, but it wasn’t long before the pika went under for good and I continued up the trail.

I couldn’t help but feel guilty about not sharing my bounty, given that it posed for so many pictures, but better to keep them wild. Besides I knew from our time together that it wasn’t going to go hungry this winter, even if it was going to have to miss out on the mango.

What follows is the welcome I got the moment I stepped on the trails in Mount Rainier National Park.

(Gasping in surprise) Oh my … Is that who I think it is? It cannot be but it is! It cannot be but it is! Hey everybody, Boolie’s here! Boolie’s here! Boolie’s here!

Are there any little rabbits in here? Because Boolie’s here! Boolie’s here! Boolie’s … what? Well how was I supposed to know you were asleep? I’m not even one year old!

(Speaking very softly) Are there any ground squirrels in here? Because if you’re not asleep, and you’re not very grumpy, Boolie’s here!

Nom nom nom … huckleberries huckleberries huckleberries … What was that? Did somebody say something? Nom nom nom …

It can’t be Boolie, he always goes to Yellowstone this time of year, let me go up and take a look. Well shut my mouth! It is Boolie! It is! It is! It is! If only we had a way get the word out to all the animals!

BOOLIE’S HERE!

(An elk bull halfway across the state in the Hoh Rainforest raises his head) What? What was that? Boolie’s there? Is he coming here? Can it be? OK OK, calm down. Deep breaths. All right listen up everyone, this is our chance to show him you don’t have to go to Yellowstone to photograph elk! On your best behavior!

(Here’s a description of the animals in each picture, maybe they all weren’t taken the moment I stepped on the trails).

1. The look of surprise on this American pika is actually it chewing with its mouth open. It was a part of a colony in a talus field near the start of the Palisades Lakes Trail in the Sunrise area of Mount Rainier National Park. I’ll be posting more pictures of this pika, it provided one of my favorite moments of the trip.
2. A black-tailed fawn nibbles on plants along the Skyline Trail in the Paradise area of Mount Rainier National Park. It was one of two fawns following its mother beside the trail.
3. A black-tailed fawn nibbles on huckleberry bushes along the Skyline Trail in the Paradise area of Mount Rainier National Park. The sections of the trail near the Paradise Inn are a great spot to look for does, fawns, and bucks.
4. A black bear eating huckleberries near the Skyline Trail in the Paradise area of Mount Rainier National Park. This bear was the most beautiful black bear I’ve ever seen, it had brown fur with blonde hair sticking up on its back. Bears were the biggest surprise of the trip, I ended up seeing at least seven with two being close to the trail, I actually saw more bears and got better pictures than I did in Yellowstone and the Tetons last year, where I only saw a few and got no good pictures.
5. A golden-mantled ground squirrel (possibly the Cascade species, I’m not sure yet) in front of a snowfield at Panorama Point on the Skyline Trail in the Paradise area of Mount Rainier National Park. More pictures of these charming little guys to come.
6. A hoary marmot calls out an alarm call at the end of the Summerland Trail in the Sunrise area of Mount Rainier National Park. I had never seen hoary marmots before this trip and was delighted to see them so often and up close, lots more pictures to come. This one was calling out a short alarm but it was pretty mild compared to the alarms that went out when a bear walked past a marmot colony, the marmots went berserk.
7. An elk bull sniffs the air in the Hoh Rainforest in Olympic National Park. I enjoyed seeing elk in the lush rainforest and got a few nice pictures that contrast nicely with the elk in a sea of brown that I tend to get in Yellowstone.

I had never seen pikas before visiting Grand Teton National Park in 2005. This is the second one I saw, sitting in a boulder field along the trail to Death Canyon. The first was a little earlier on the trail but also a little further away. This was one was much more cooperative and so I spent quite a bit of time watching it. It eventually popped up onto this rock with a view of the fall colors behind it.

A beautiful moment on a beautiful trail in a beautiful park.

Excellent!

Doggone it, he’s got a telephoto lens, he doesn’t need to come closer! What kind of fool carries such a heavy lens this far up the canyon?

I came across this beautiful pika just below Inspiration Point on the trail into Cascade Canyon in Grand Teton National Park. The picture was taken with Canon’s 100-400mm lens, a moderately sized telephoto lens. Pikas were one of the creatures I was anxious to see again on my visit, so I was thrilled to see a few on my day hikes in the several days I spent in the park.