Crouching Marmot. Yosemite National Park, California. June 5, 2010. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.
A marmot crouches on rocks at Olmsted Point, Yosemite National Park, California.
Oh, no, not another marmot! Yes, another marmot. And I think I have at least one more to post before I’m done. Once again, this critter was hanging out in the rocks at Olmsted Point when I visited on my way across Tioga Pass on June 5, 2010.
I’d love to be able to say that I had to carefully stalk this marmot across the alpine tundra of the high Sierra, but that wouldn’t be true. First, it is really hard to closely approach marmots that are not accustomed to the presence of humans, and the back-country marmots tend to be fairly skittish. Second, I would not be carrying the lens that I used for this shot on back-country pack trips. The truth is that this critter is one of the many that hang out at Olmsted Point along Tioga Pass Road. These marmots won’t – fortunately! – eat out of your hand or anything like that, and they do retain some caution… but you can get relatively close to them. I was there on this day because it was the day that the pass was first opened for the season. The marmots almost seemed a bit bemused by all of the humans who showed up that day, and they also seemed to be enjoying a bit of late spring sun.
My approach to photographing them was pretty simple. I put a long lens on my camera – a 400mm telephoto – and found a comfortable spot below the rocks where they hang out. I waited quietly, and when they began to “come out to play,” I was able to photograph them from a decent distance and avoid spooking them.
G Dan Mitchell Photography
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