Check out these little boogers

So last night I headed up into Big Cottonwood canyon to camp at Willow Springs Lake. The weather was pretty crappy in the afternoon and at one point I decided not to go because of the thunder and lightning. Around 5:30 the skies started to break so I took off up the mountain. The temp down in the valley was mid 70's, but when I got to the trail head it was a brisk 52deg and dropping along with the sun. I reached camp fairly quick and set the tent up. It was cold, but that was my fault because I was wearing really light weights clothes. Gathering fire wood helped warm me up, except for my hands which got a little cold holding the wet limbs. Problem number 1: everything was WET, really wet. I got the driest, most dead fire starting material I could find, but after a good 30min of trying to get it going I had to give up. Everything in the area was still soaked from the rain that fell just an hour or so earlier.
I nestled up into my tent as the temps kept falling. I wrote a page in the journal and opened up Walk Across America Part 2, The Walk West for the first time. I got the book before I left but haven't started reading it yet, until now. I was surprised to find out I had some cell phone service so I talked to Carrie a bit before I hit the sack, literally. My sleeping bag kept me amazingly warm all night even though it was fairly chilly and I was far from dressed for it.
The morning came along with bright sunshine heated up the air quickly. I had some simple breakfast and started to pack the camp up when I got visitors in the form of some curious, furry, hungry, marmots. The locals here call them "potguts", but basically they are a perfect mixture of a squirrel and prairie dog. They live in groups or families, have underground towns, and chirp just like prairie dogs.
So anyways, I'm getting my tent tore down and two of these little guys start working their way towards me. I had some mixed nuts so I go them out and tossed a few peanuts towards one. Eventually he found the nuts and ate them up. Soon afterwards he took off back towards the colony and within a couple minutes he returned with friends! Next thing I know there were around 8 of these fellas searching my campsite for food. I figured they weren't harmful, and definitely not close to a bear, so I kept tossing more peanuts out for them and one by one they ate them up. Little by little they got more brave and wandered closer to me as I sat on a log near the fire pit. At one point I had a few of them within 6ft of me, and eventually one actually walked under the log and sniffed my shoe as it passed underneath. I was able to get some pics and videos that you can see on my smugmug page (click on the photo below), and the videos are on youtube (you can search by my user name: iambquinn).
It was a good two hours sitting there with my new friends and probably the most fun I've had since I got out here (different type of fun than mountain biking). Enjoy the pics and videos.


Video links: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCsPxANxEPE&feature=channel