This year, for my August holidays, I went to the fantastic Italian dolomites alps, to breath fresh air, and do some walks on the mountains to see beautiful views. I choose sexten dolomites, and for the first time I had a closer encounter with Marmots. During a descend from Mt. Elmo on a trail, halfway up, started to see a lot of holes on the ground, typical of marmots burrow, so me and my girlfriend stopped and, watching carefully around us, we saw on a stone, 10-15 meters away, one marmot who was acting as a sentinel. We admired it for a couple of minutes and I made some shots, one of which you can see above.
![DSCF5912.JPG](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmc1fhXVeB3hiqHKb9aQBVs2gp4stNDrcn9u7mPYkrqeoJ/DSCF5912.JPG)

The marmot never considered us harmful, so it lies down again watching the landscape. We leaved and made some meters away, I saw another one, running to the burrow, but it stopped at the entrance when I was only 4 meters away. Also with this marmot we exchanged some looks, and I was able to make some other photos, before it went in the hole and bye bye…. A marmot at four meters from me was a real close encounter and I’m very happy that it never runs away giving us time to admire it.
![DSCF5916.JPG](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmdRZqzHGwsejDVP3YF5RLaHQ8BVYAKCMz9fGjPPA13XaG/DSCF5916.JPG)

Very happy of what happened, and satisfied for the photo catch.
Cheers

Qui la versione in italiano dell'articolo : http://www.cesmak.it/2018/08/29/un-incontro-ravvicinato/