Tag Archives: mammals

True Beginning

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A hoary marmot sits in a talus field amidst heavy rain on the Sourdough Ridge Trail in the Sunrise area of Mount Rainier National Park

Despite my whimsical post about how my trip to Washington started, this is literally the first picture of my trip. After driving through rain from Portland to Mount Rainier, I had a couple of hours before sunset so I stopped in the Sunrise area of the park to hike a bit on the Sourdough Ridge Trail. I donned all of my wet weather gear and wrapped my camera and lenses in plastic bags before putting them in my camera bag.

As I climbed up the trail the wind picked up and as I got further along the trail towards Frozen Lake, the rain turned to snow that bit me hard in the face. Despite the nasty weather my spirits were high when I spotted an unusual rock at the side of the trail. A second look turned the rock into a hoary marmot that was standing on its hind legs, my first look at this species and posing in what would have made a beautiful picture.

Would have made a beautiful picture, but since my cameras were safe and dry inside my camera bag, I couldn’t take its picture. I decided to risk the weather and got the camera out and attached the lens, but by this time the marmot had stopped posing and was walking to a different part of the talus field. It did stop for a moment before disappearing under the rocks, so I was able to get this picture (and a few others zoomed in a bit more, but I like how this picture shows the driving rain).

I decided then and there to risk having the camera out in the rain, I covered it with a plastic bag as best I could and tried to keep it as dry. It was my first few hours into a 9 day trip and a bit of a risk, but I felt it was worth it after having missed what would have been one of my favorite pictures of the year.

It turned out to be the right decision, I saw four grouse (including this one) on the way back down the trail. I had to shoot in the rain off and on during the trip but kept the same philosophy, being careful but not careless, and I was fortunate not to have any cameras die on me. My 100-400mm lens is showing some problems and may have to be sent in for repairs, but not because of the rain.

Canon’s newer mid-range cameras have more gaskets on them than mine do, but they still don’t put them as many places as they should. Gaskets and o-rings can crack and shrink and leak over time, so you can’t completely rely on them to keep water out of your camera, but when you’re out on the trail and out in the rain, you’ll take every bit of help you can get.

Hoary Boolie

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Close-up view of a hoary marmot's face on the Skyline Trail in Mount Rainier National Park

The first of many pictures from my recent trip to Mount Rainier and Olympic National Parks, pictures should be coming online slowly over the next few weeks. It’s been slow going partly because of the large number of pictures to sort through, partly because Sam and Scout have been curling up on me and keeping me from working at my computer, and partly because work has been busy and stressful since I got back.

This is a hoary marmot on Mount Rainier’s Skyline Trail, taken shortly before I left the park on my last morning there. The marmot gets its name from the silvery white fur that covers its nose and parts of its body (the exact coloration varies from marmot to marmot).

I don’t shave on my weeklong fall hiking trips, a little tradition I started back in 2004 to save precious moments in the morning. A quick look at my whiskers showed that the marmots weren’t the only ones sporting silvery white hairs. At first this seemed an unmistakable sign I’m getting older, but I quickly realized they were more likely due to the same environmental conditions that create the white fur in the marmots. Maybe it’s the altitude, something in the water, who knows.

They have nothing to do with me turning 40 this year, of that I’m certain.

Sense of Place

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Female elk resting near the Madison River in Yellowstone National Park

It’s usually pretty hard to provide a sense of place in a close-up portrait, but this intimate portrait of an elk cow strongly hints at Yellowstone with the burned and broken tree in the background. It was indeed taken near the Madison River in Yellowstone, she was part of a herd that was resting in the rain.