Three Miles East of East Inlet Trailhead, Rocky Mountain National Park

A dialogue:

Two hundred feet of vertical will get you to where there is almost nobody in any American national park. So what is this chipmunk doing chittering at us from the creekbed?

Shoo! Shoo!

Why are you doing that?

It's not good for it to be dependent on humans for food. It needs to associate humans with unpleasant sensations and danger. Shoo! Shoo!

You know the telos of a chipmunk?

It's not like there are a lot of people up here. We haven't seen anyone for a mile and a half.

It's not as though the meadow is overrun with chipmunks, distorting the ecology...

Its life is nasty, British, and short enough even with occasional granola crumbs...

"British"?

Blame the iPhone's autocomplete feature for that one.

Then how did it learn to beg?

Al Gore.

What did you say?

Al Gore. It's one of Al Gore's creatures. It's one of Al Gore's lieutenants, who wander the earth tirelessly spreading the good news of environmentalism.

The altitude has gotten to you.

No it hasn't! People go to national parks. They see a cute chipmunk. They engage in a gift-exchange relationship with it. They feel happy. They feel interdependent with other humans and with the planet. They vote for Al Gore-approved candidates. We protect the environment. The world goes to its happy place.

But anyone who makes it up here is already a believer...

So you are proposing an alternative telos for the chipmunk?

Yes. As a neuron in the universe's coming to self-consciousness.

But we didn't feed it, and now it's gone...

I still want to know how it learned to beg. Its life is short. This trail is snowed-in until May, and the snow falls again in October. This is 10000 feet, after all...

There it is again...

Comments

[Lukeness]

Often the trail is snowed-in until June and snow falls through the summer, beginning to accumulate again in September.

[MobiusKlein]

But why does Al Gore go to national parks?

(and if you guessed "because it's a great place for your 30th wedding anniversary, give yourself a pat.)

[walkingtheline]

Count yourself lucky market forces haven't pushed it into the t-shirts and leatherware business.

[andres]

Feh. The chipmunk was not begging, and probably its chittering was simply to tell Brad to get his big, philosophically noisy, shambling carcass away from the premises before he attracted the local bears. And while British tourist bears might be more polite, they will still sample the regional hors d'eouvres.

[dvx]

Could it be that the chipmunk has philosophical objections to the mindset that causes people to hike into the woods and then play with their iphones?

[Rob]

Yep pretty sure he wasn't begging, just laughing at a person who would spend $600 on a phone. The iPholp is even a joke in the animal kingdom.

[DILBERT DOGBERT]

200 vertical feet will not cut it in Yosemite. You need something like 5 miles or more beyond the High Sierra Camps to reach aloneness. The northern half of the park is less traveled, from my experience, and does offer a quick way away from the crowds.

[jonfernquest]

The chipmunk isn't begging.

It just wants to be friends.

He or she (did you check, it's important and polite) is not privy to finely-grained humanoid distinctions such as begging.

[Gene O'Grady]

Mr. Dogbert,

If being alone is a criterion, you can always try the beautiful Great Basin National Park in Nevada.

Or even the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest, not far from Yosemite. On what is what one of my two most favorite hikes ever I managed to be able to see for ten miles all around me and not a person in sight.

The way I got there may appeal to Professor DeLong -- I misread the map, and convinced my son (who prefers downtown Bishop or the pool) that it was only 7,000 feet up -- in fact it's about 11,000, and the drive is, shall we say, colorful. At any rate I think he's convinced to this day that I didn't really misread the map, I was cheating.

By the way, is it a chipmunk or a golden-mantled squirrel?

[wood turtle]

I think that Republicans and Libertarians probably feed chipmunks too.

This longing for aloneness must come from living in crowded places. It makes you more vulnerable to grizzly bears when you travel alone.

I remember asking in Glacier Park what was the minimum size of group that was never attacked by a bear and they said 6 people. We went on hikes with just our family and in a big crowd on a ranger walk, and we felt much more comfortable being with the ranger in a large group.

[johne]

It's usually called "scolding," and it's a common chipmunk response to anything considered a non-immediate danger or an intruder. In relatively populated areas chipmunks will taunt dogs with the same behavior, dashing back and forth along barbed wire or fence rails a few inches from the leaping, slavering jaws, and feigning missteps if the dogs begin to lose interest, lurching temptingly to one side or the other, swinging from the wire with a single paw-hold, chittering at the top of their lungs all the while.