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Sunday, July 11, 2010

Climb Every Mountain Until You Find Your Golden Ticket or Your Spirit Animal

Once upon a time in the land known as Colorado, I saw a varmint cross the road. I was probably around 12 years old at the time. Thus I was not only lacking in my animal identification skills, but alas there was no Google around to help me identify the creature. I knew it wasn't a groundhog, but it looked a little like one.

Fast forward 15 years, I once again find myself in the land of Colorado hiking along a trail at high altitude. Although there wasn't much oxygen, I was fairly certain I wasn't having a vision when I saw a fat rodent-like-beast come towards me with a hopeful gleam in his eye.

The creature was a Marmot and they seemed terribly tame for living way up at 13,000+ feet. They must have been fed a lot of granola bars, because they walked right up to us ready to have some lunch. Here I thought I was trekking into the wild.

We reached the top of Mt. Chiquita, (no relation to the banana that I know of.) and realized that our hopes of summiting a second mountain were about to be dashed by the ominous rainclouds on the horizon. I was alright with that, so we said goodbye to our friends the Marmots and ran down the mountain, barely avoiding a mountain downpour.

Looking back at the photos, I realize I look a little like Johnny Dep's version of Willy Wonka, but the wind was crazy up there and I didn't care what I looked like.

From Estes Hike

From Estes Hike

From Estes Hike

From Estes Hike

From Estes Hike

3 comments:

  1. I don't know that I believe that a marmot is your spirit animal. Nope, nope, it's definitely something more exotic/cagey/sun-loving.

    ReplyDelete
  2. But I saw them on my vision quest. Plus they like the sun. Exotic and cagey hunh?

    ReplyDelete
  3. I have to agree, I don't think a marmot is your spirit animal. Something with feathers perhaps?

    ReplyDelete

Recap Defined

ri•cap 1 (rē-kāp') Pronunciation Key tr.v. ri•capped, ri•cap•ping, ri•caps
1. a summary at the end that repeats the substance of a longer discussion
2. To replace a cap or caplike covering on: recapped the camera lens.
3. Ri - a female given name: derived from Adrienne.