In the world of big game hunting, sheep are held in reverence. The claim is
often made that the adulation is due every bit as much for the country the sheep
live in as the beauty of the animal itself. I suppose the fact that Jack
O’Connor himself was a sheep nut of the highest order has had a lot to do with
sheep hunting’s popularity. But sadly, sheep hunting is out of reach of most
hunters. I have not priced a sheep hunt lately, but I am guessing they go for
around $8,000, a lot of money for a lot of people. Some people might think of a
sheep hunt as once in a lifetime hunt, but if I had only hunted whitetail deer
and perhaps antelope or bear, and had $8,000 to spend, I would make two hunts: I
would go to Africa and collect a pile of trophies. That hunt would cost about
$8,000. Then I would spend a week in the high country of the Rockies hunting
marmots, also called rockchucks, the varmint hunter’s version of the sheep.
That hunt would cost me the price of gas and a small game hunting license.
Marmots don’t possess the stunning horns of a Dall sheep, but a backpack trip
into the Rockies has all of the attributes you find in a sheep hunt. Sheep
hunting gives you a feeling of being on top of the world because literally, you
are. The wind blows harder and colder, and like the deserts of Arizona, you
wonder how any animal can live, let alone thrive in what appears to be a harsh
environment. But like the desert, the amount of animal life is stunning, the
scenery surprisingly beautiful, and the physical demands of the trip leave you
with a lasting impression of conquest.
My better half, Catherine, and I have made a habit of spending a week in August
in the Colorado Rockies. We own 50 acres of land on the west side of the San
Louis valley and like to camp there. Some day we will build a house there, but
for now, that land, bordering national forest, draws us inexplicably to
Colorado. We normally fly from Phoenix and rent a car, but this year we decided
to load up the 4 Runner and make an old fashioned road trip. We loaded our
basic car camping setup, which includes a Cabela’s Alaskan geodesic dome tent (this
is a wonderful tent in the wind), a queen sized air mattress, our Adam and Eve
sleeping bags, 15 gallons of water, a cooler stocked with food and frosty pops (that’s
beer), two solar showers, a Dutch oven and frying pan, a bag of charcoal, and
our backpacking setups (lightweight tent, sleeping bags, lightweight stove,
etc.) For guns I took my Remington 700 ADL in .223 Remington, my Thompson/Center
Contender in .222 Remington, and my .22 Ruger Single Six. I also tossed in a
fishing rod for good measure.
We stopped at Catherine’s sister’s house near Bayfield, Colorado on the first
day. I took young Mr. Daniel Walker (Catherine’s nephew) out behind the house
to shoot some .22 rimfire ammo from the Ruger Single Six. He enjoyed that, but
all the while I was waiting for a chance to conquer those snow-covered peaks and
hunt some marmots.
We left the next day under sheets of cascading rain. As we climbed over Wolf
Creek Pass, the rain turned to snow. It continued to pour on the other side, so
instead of heading to our land, we drove on to Denver to spend two days with my
parents. On the way we stopped by the ranch my brother works on to say hi and
inquire about shooting some gophers. Much to our surprise, the drought in
Colorado had apparently taken respite, because daily rains had created a lush
grass that made it impossible to see any gophers. After a few days in Denver,
we turned the car west and headed back into the mountains.
I wanted to hunt marmots on this trip, and Catherine wanted to climb a 14er,
Colorado lingo for a mountain over 14,000 feet. In Colorado there are plenty of
mountains that qualify. We selected one that shall remain nameless and drove to
the trailhead. The trail to the summit was 10 miles. Our packs were already
loaded up, but I stuck my Contender and a handful of dainty .222 Remington
cartridges in my pack. I was not sure I was going to find marmots in the first
place, and I didn’t want to lug a rifle up the mountain for nothing. Besides,
the Contender in .222 is quite accurate.
The trail led through a thick pine forest and before long we were paralleling a
creek with gin clear, ice cold water. As we followed this creek up the mountain
we ran into some hikers who had camped at the trailhead and left at dawn.
“Did you guys summit?” I asked.
“Yeah, we did,” was the reply.
“How high can we go and still find running water?”
“This stream peters out just ahead. After that, you will have to melt snow, of
which there is plenty,” said the lanky guy from Buffalo, New York.
Well, that did it for us. My pack was feeling unexplainably heavy, and I was
actually feeling depressed that I was in such bad shape. The previous year we
had climbed a 14,264 ft peak after an approach of 9 miles wearing our full packs
all the way to the top. (I wrote about that trip in the June 2003 issue of The
VARMINT HUNTER Magazine.) We dropped our packs and set up camp near the creek,
then decided to scout around the area. I loaded the Contender in my pack along
with some clothes and a few bottles of water. We then headed up the trail.
The forest soon became a mix of pine and aspen, and before we knew it, we were
into the bristle cone pines that claim squatter’s rights on the timberline in
Colorado. The trail turned into a draw and we could see a saddle ahead that the
map told us was at 13,600 feet. No sign of marmots, but I knew we had to go
further. I then spotted a hiker coming down the trail. He was a meteorologist
for a Colorado Springs television station, and told us that while we were close,
we would not hit the summit until 5:30 pm or so. Not wanting to return in the
dark, we turned around and headed back to camp, chatting with our new found
friend.
“See any marmots up there?” I asked.
“Oh yeah, there are a bunch very close to the summit,” he replied.
That was all I needed to hear. We returned to our camp. The forest was quite
damp, but we did manage to get a fire going. We had a before dinner drink
concocted by splashing a bit of whiskey into cups filled with ice cold filtered
creek water. Dinner was typical backpack fare: Mountain House dehydrated
meals. We turned into our sleeping bags early and slept well.
The next morning we boiled water for coffee and oatmeal, then shouldered
lightened packs and headed back up the trail. We quickly reached the
bristlecone pines, and as we climbed through these I noticed movement to my
right.
“Catherine,” I said softly. “Look to your right – bighorn sheep.”
A flock of ewes and immature rams were walking parallel to use, but broke into a
run and cut in front of us. Catherine got a bird’s eye view of them. There
must have been 30 of them. We continued up the trail, her pace soon putting her
ahead of me as it always does. Even though it was mid-September, the trail was
filled with as much as two feet of snow in places. After a few hours, I found
her waiting for me at the crest of a saddle at 13,800 feet, crouching low to
stay out of the wind which was becoming downright brutal. Just then I spotted a
hiker coming down off the summit. The wind was roaring. As our paths crossed,
he yelled to us approach from the backside of the mountain – the wind was so
strong that, at times, he had to lie down for fear of losing his balance.
As we approached the summit from the backside, the wind died down and I
immediately recognized good marmot country. Marmots love grassy slopes covered
with rocks. They obviously eat the grass, but they seem to require rocks from
which to sit and soak up the rays of the sun. I spotted my first rockchuck
above 14,000 feet, which is higher than I have ever seen them before. He was
laying flat on a rock. I slipped the pack off and pulled out the Contender. I
broke open the action and hastily stuffed a bullet into the barrel. Cocking the
gun, I took careful aim at the rockchuck and then let ‘er fly.
The rockchuck flipped off the rock as the boom of the pistol shot rolled off the
mountain. I then noticed another rockchuck to my right. Reloading, I took aim
and pulled the trigger. This one too flipped off the rock. I posed for a few
kill photos while Catherine clicked the shutter. It was then on to the top of
the mountain. You see, in Colorado, the limit on rockchucks is a mere two per
day.
We reached the summit soon after; it was a quick scrabble up the rocks from the
marmot village. As we crested the mountain, the wind slammed into us again as
it had on the saddle. We gazed down on the valley below and I thought about
some of the big game mountain hunting adventures I had been on. Like those
hunts, this marmot hunt placed me squarely in some of the most beautiful habitat
in the world. To me, it didn’t matter if the hunt itself was only a varmint
hunt. The physical challenge was actually greater than sheep hunting…so what if
the trophy didn’t have a huge set of horns?
Marmot Tips
Marmot hunting is all about finding the right habitat. Only a relatively small
portion of high country is suitable marmot habitat, which lies above timberline
but below the tundra line. Look for areas of thick green grass covered by rocks.
I have most often found marmots just above timberline; having to go as high as
14,000 feet is in my opinion, unusual. Of course, the farther north you go, the
lower the timberline, and consequently, the lower the varmints. In Colorado,
you would be hard pressed to find marmots within rifle shot of a road – you
simply must climb. Marmots leave lots of droppings, which are large for the
size of the animal. If you find a lot of droppings near holes in high grassy
areas covered with rocks, you are in marmot country. Look for the animals
themselves to be on rocks sunning themselves. Their coats are thick with long
hair and will appear to be dark colored.
Marmot hunting is traditionally a rifleman’s game, but I prefer specialty
pistols. Lugging a rifle on a backpack trip is a lot of work. A pistol may not
have the range of a rifle, but high country marmots, at least those in Colorado,
are not especially shy and can be stalked within pistol range quite easily.
Rockchucks are not as large as woodchucks, but they are hardy creatures. As
tempting as it may be to use a .22 rimfire, stick to the centerfires for
rockchucks. A .222 or .223 Remington is plenty. For rifle hunters, the .243
Winchester or .25-06 is about perfect, due to the incessant wind found in alpine
areas.
Finally, be sure to check hunting regulations. In Colorado, a small game
license is required to hunt marmots, and like it or not, while the bag limits
are not especially generous, the scenery is. If you have always wanted to make
a high country hunt, consider making that a marmot hunt in the high country of
the Western Rockies.
