On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions.
From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.
Wag
So much of the action in the Chicago Basin involves the high peak and the spectacular landscapes that it is easy to miss the fauna that lives season after season in these areas. With this final post I hope to correct that oversight.
Perhaps the most exciting this in the Basin is the number of mountain goats. After our descent from Windom we encountered a herd of about 20 goats, They are very friendly, and have no fear of people. We were able to walk in close proximity tot he herd with only curious glances. The kids were playing and climbing, mastering the technical skills needed to survive in their vertical landscape.
Learning to balance.
Pikas are a resilient and adorable high country resident. They live all over the mountains of Colorado, including the tops of the highest peaks, like this little guy on the summit of Eolus at 14.083 feet. Pikas are industrious animals who spend much of the summer storing away died grass and flowers in their burrows so they can survive the harsh snow covered winters. I think they may be my favorite alpine animals.
Marmots are another common animal in the alpine reaches of Colorado. Unlike the solitary pika, marmots are a more gregarious creature, living in family groups. It is not uncommon th find groups of 4-5 marmots hanging out together.
It was also common the see deer in the lower basin. Here is a curious doe outside of our tent one afternoon. The goats would also come down to the valley, as evidenced by the wool that they were shedding. Every day we would find fresh goat wool stuck to trees near our camp, although we never had the pleasure of seeing the goats below timberline.
And now, a final pika photo. Thanks for joining me on my trip!
Wvng
Thanks for taking us with you.
JeanneT
A great ending report from a great trip. Love seeing the wildlife!
OzarkHillbilly
Pikas are the best. So much fun to watch. And damned hard to get a good pic of. Well done.
pb3550
Great vicarious getaway. Thanks for all that climbing & photo-ing so we could join.
Dorothy A. Winsor
Have loved all your pics, but these animal ones are the best.
Betty
Thanks for these photos. Mountain goats are amazing. The pika is a cutie.
KSinMA
Wonderful photos. Love the one of the marmot where you caught the critter plus the breathtaking view!
eclare
Awww…great photos! I agree the photo with the marmot and the scenery in the background is wonderful.
Anyway
I love mountain goats – wonderful pics and series. Thanks for sharing.
J R in WV
Great photos of the critters… thanks so much!!
Personally, many years ago I (a long time rock and mineral collector) spent 3 weeks with a collecting buddy in Colorado (primarilly) and WY collecting rocks of all kinds. Driving from Canyon City north to Cripple Creek on a one lane road on the side of a vertical walled box canyon we saw a herd of mountain goats.
They were quite close to us in one way, actual straight line distance of maybe 100 feet, but forever away in terms of vertical down from the road, a few feet across the canyon floor, then back up the vertical east side of the canyon. It was late June IIRC, and the very young Mtn Goats were already able to gambol up and down what looked like sheer cliffs to us. Maybe a dozen or 15 goats all told,
Amazing to watch, we sat there in our little Ford Ranger, admiring the nature. I miss the Rocky Mtns, CO, New Mexico, although our hermitage in WV is pretty sweet.
WaterGirl
Wag, i see you saved the best for last! Of course the post with the critters would be my favorite. :-)
cope
Thanks for a wonderful week of gorgeous pictures. Saving the critters for the final act was a sweet way to end the adventure.
Thanks again and all the best in your quest to knock off all the fourteeners.
JanieM
To not only get the critters but to get them all in such nice pictures is quite a feat. Thanks for a great week.
Madeleine
So much character in these photos of the animal residents. And thanks for a great series!
susanna
Loved this entire photo series! Those mountain goats have very long, pointy antlers(?) – no time to look up just now. Thank you for all of them!
stinger
Absolutely wonderful photos! Thank you so much!
mvr
Wildlife! My favorite part of being outside. Goats are cool and not that easy to find. Thanks!
Miss Bianca
PIKAS!!
And whistle pigs! And mountain goats! Yay!
Back at elevation myself this morning, after having spent two weeks on the East Coast. Gorgeous photos!
Victor Matheson
Interesting item about mountain goats is that they are not actually native to Colorado. They were first introduced in 1947 and have spread throughout the whole state so that it is really common to see them above timberline on many 14ers.
I don’t think anyone has actually named them as an invasive species because they are just too damn cute, and they don’t seem to be forcing anything else out with their existence
Addition: It should be noted that the bighorn sheep is native to Colorado and also common above timberline but is very distinctly different than the mountain goat. Bighorns have curly horns like the Dodge Ram pickup truck logo and a sleek brown coat with a white breast vs. all white and shaggy with the prong-like horns for the mountain goats.
Yutsano
BABY GOATS!!!
I love the pikas too.
Dan B
Went camping in the North Cascades at Hart’s Pass, the highest road that passenger vehicles can drive in the state. My partner at the time had a Jack Russell terrier. Thee were dozens of pikas, and whistle pigs, and we struggled to keep “Jack” on his leash. There was a lot of whistling by the Pikas whenever they caught sight of “Jack”.
Mountain Goat’s are not native to the Olympics and are being removed because they are destroying the alpine meadows. Unfortunately they are dangerous to humans. And they are beautiful and amazing to encounter.
Interstadial
Thanks for featuring and telling a bit about two of my favorite high-mountain mammals! We also have marmots and pikas in the high mountains of California. I saw a lot of marmots in my backpacking days but only a few pikas. Pikas are sometimes called coneys, and they are in fact related to rabbits and hares rather than to rodents.
My wife moved out west from the east coast and one of my hopes in showing her around the state was that she’d get to get to see these two critters. That happened in about 5 minutes on one modest hike in Lassen Volcanic National Park. She was happy to see them and I was very pleased.
Alas, the pikas in particular are threatened by global warming. A number of isolated mountain ranges in Nevada that aren’t quite high enough anymore have already lost their populations in the last 100 years. Pikas just can’t handle really hot temperatures.
Love the mountain goats which we don’t have in the California mountains, though we do have bighorn sheep.
Wag
Wil my longstanding interest in the 14ers, I have had the pleasure of getting involved with the Colorado Fourteeners Initiative, a non-profit that works to build hardened and sustainable trails to all of the 14ers in Colorado, and to education climbers about preserving the alpine environment. We have put together a YouTube channel that has some really great videos about mountain wildlife, including Marmots and Pikas. Enjoy!
TriassicSands
Be careful around mountain goats. A number of years ago a goat gored a man in Olympic National Park, severing his femoral artery, i believe. The man bled-out and died.
Wild animals should never be approached, no matter how cool it seems at the time. Over-familiarity with humans rarely ends well for wild animals. The best way to respect them is to observe them from a distance.
Also beware of marmots. They can do a lot of damage — not to your person, but to your equipment. Anything you have that is salty — like a pack with perspiration on it — will be chewed up and destroyed by ravenous marmots.
And a final warning about pikas. They are so cute, just looking at them for too long can be fatal. Not to mention the most adorable sound you’re ever likely to hear in the wild.
Wag
@TriassicSands:
I would absolutely agree about marmots and loving salt. This summer my wife left her trekking poles at the bottom of a technical summit climb. We came back 30 minutes later and a marmot had knocked her poles over and devoured the cork handles, which ended up looking like a chewed corn cob.
Goats are also notorious for wanting salt. When you’re hiking, ofttimes mountain goats will follow along behind you, and if you stop to pee, the goats will immediately lap up all of the salt that you’ve left behind. Very strange and slightly disturbing.
Tehanu
Love the marmot!
lashonharangue
When I used to hike out of Mineral King in Sequoia NP people would put chicken wire around the base of their cars at the trail head parking lot to keep out the marmots. The marmots would chew on the radiator hoses because the coolant tastes sweet.