Hoary marmot

Cross a high meadow at Paradise or Sunrise on Mount Rainier in late summer and you may hear it before you see it: a single loud, sharp whistle that carries across the flowers. It comes from a hoary marmot, the largest ground squirrel in North America, a rodent about two feet long counting its bushy tail and as heavy as a house cat. When one marmot whistles a warning that an eagle, a coyote, or a hiker is near, the others bolt for their burrows. The alarm call is so much a part of the animal that a whole Canadian mountain, Whistler, is named for it.

Hoary means frosted with gray, and it fits. Silvery fur lies over the marmot’s shoulders and back as if it had been dusted with frost, above darker legs and a reddish tail. All summer the marmot grazes grasses, wildflowers, leaves, and roots, packing on a thick layer of fat, because it stores no food for winter. Instead it eats and eats through the short mountain summer, then curls up deep in its burrow below the frost line and sleeps for eight or nine months while the meadow lies buried in snow. It wakes up thin in spring and starts fattening up all over again.

Hoary marmots are often curious and easy to watch, sunning themselves on boulders right beside the trail. They are harmless, but they are still wild: a cornered marmot can bite, human food makes it sick, and marmots love salt so much they will chew on sweaty pack straps and hiking poles to get it. So keep your snacks put away, keep anything salty out of reach, and give the animal room. Then sit still on the rocks and wait for the next whistle to roll across the meadow.