Memories Of Marmot Skull Gap

Day 107: In my younger years, I spent many days exploring trailless backcountry, my trusty map and compass in hand. It was not uncommon for me to disappear into the wilderness for two weeks at a time, returning to civilization at the end of my sojourn with fir needles caught in my hair, a little puzzled by why friends and relatives alike fretted about me during my absence. I have always been at home in the woods and, at least in the Pacific Northwest, have found it hard to get lost even if I worked hard at it. I nearly always wound up retracing my own footprints, the lay of the land the only "marker" I might need.

On one of these many treks, I was working my way toward a summit and found my way impeded by dense juniper and cedar. It took a bit of scouting, but eventually I found a way through the maze and in the process, discovered the skull of a Hoary Marmot. I did not pick it up, thinking I'd collect it when I came down from my goal, but I got distracted by some other vista and returned via a different path. It was not until I was back in camp that I remembered it, and since I was not going that way again, I wrote it off.

The following year, I returned to the same area and again climbed the same peak, passing through the gap in the brush as I did so, but I failed to find the skull even though I searched. Nevertheless, since the passage through the scrub had not closed in, I dubbed the spot Marmot Skull Gap.

Over several more annual trips, I searched again for the skull and failed to find it. Then one September as I passed through the Gap, a bright white object caught my eye, exposed where I could not have missed it. I am guessing that some critter had carted it off to a den and some other critter had then removed it, but in any event, one jaw was there at my feet. I figured I might be able to find another piece if I searched carefully, and by the time I was done, I had three of the four jaws and all four long front teeth.

Marmot Skull Gap is beyond my physical reach at this point in my life, too many miles and too many days into the interior for me to tackle. I still enjoy map-and-compass day trips, though, and I have these physical reminders of a place I see as clearly in my mind's eye as if I were standing among its tangled branches at this very moment.