Originally published at: Brazen marmot tries to steal hiker's trekking pole | Boing Boing
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Gonna need some help from a friend…HEY ALAAAAANNNN! ALAAANNN!
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i’m going to go with the salt appeal. Supposedly salt is at a great lack in the alpine mountain lands. There are myriad stories of deer discovering where a salt imbued hiker from the city has taken a whizz; so perhaps a sweaty hand upon a trekking pole…? Then again, who doesn’t like a good point-ed stick?
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Spot-on. Marmots crave salt and there’s plenty on the grips of trekking poles. However, they’ll eat anything they can find.
This is a little guy who raided my lunch atop Mt. Columbia. (I set him up so I could take pics).
A few years back, I parked my vehicle below treeline (but at 10.5k) and went backpacking. On our return, the little bastard marmots had chewed through enough wires to fry my distributor. Some people here in CO use coyote urine (available on Amazon) or build little chicken wire fences to prevent this.
You’re right about goats, too. The best way to see them up close is to let them watch you pee. Fearlessly, they’ll approach to lick it up. Salt.
-edited for an omission
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There are few things I trust less than a marmot.
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Good call. They can be trusted to sneak up and steal what you don’t guard.
Not that I’ll ever participate, but Colorado’s marmot hunting season goes from Aug 10 - Oct 15. yy
People actually shoot them!? Then again, we have a mountain goat season, as well. We came down off a summit once to find a bunch of rednecks and a freshly skinned goat. Ugh. How could you?
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That’s going into a song, many thanks.
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My first guess too.
In the Northeast porcupines will demolish your boots if you leave them outside the tent at night, and on A.T. shelters they will chew up the edges where sweaty hikers have been sitting.
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Yikes.
Just got back from a Northeast camp trip in June near the Canadian border.
Thanks for the heads up.
My Chacos are plenty sweaty, and I hung them up high, but since porcupines climb, I should think about bagging them and putting them in my tent.
Had not heard about the sweaty edges thing.
My sister-in-law hiked parts of Montana.
Can confirm. 24/7. Like, even at night, when she left her tent to pee.
This is what the trekking guide had said to my SIL.
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As a guy who’s always been on the sweaty side, maybe I should make sure I clean up before hitting the sack. Even my pet cats love to lick the salt off of me.
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Salt? Something else? Immaterial.
Either you stop it from taking your stick, or the marmot takes your stick because you are too weak to stop the marmot from taking your stick. This is the marmot’s world and you are living by marmot rules.
Don’t mourn the loss of your stick, be thankful it didn’t want more. Flee, human, before it does.
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Aren’t marmots legendarily shy?
Now I’m wondering whether that’s only true for alpine marmots (Americans tend to be more extroverted than central Europeans after all) or whether their reputation as shy comes from the fact that there just were so few of them left in Europe after we hunted them all.
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I think I saw Brazen Marmot at The Decade in 1982.
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I hear braised marmot is nice.
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We don’t put up with any of that nonsense from the marmots around here.
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It was a three-marmot job once they recruited Steve.
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I hear it’s horrible and only edible if you cut away all the fat and then braise it for a really long time.
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