I was already a mile and a quarter on trail in the cascades of Washington state when I began to have a hard time wanting to finish. This particular day, my hike was in honor of my mom on the anniversary of her death, which I do every year. I hike every weekend in the cascades, and I never have difficulty, but with this trail being in honor of my mom, my emotions began to get the best of me. I began my hike before sunrise around 4:30AM, and as the sun rose, I sat down and was ready to quit due to my emotions taking over. It was then that a marmot had approached me. I told the marmot I have no food, and that I’d rather be alone, and it in return stayed around for a while grazing. I eventually stood up with my mind made up that I was going to head back to trailhead, thus never finishing the trail in honor of my mom for the 2nd year in a row. Once I began making my way back, the marmot ran and stopped in front of me, blocking my path, and not phased by me to move at all. I turned around to go around it, and it ran in front of me once more, but this time walking in front of me. It stopped every now and then to look back at me. When I walked, it walked. When I stopped, it slowed down. I followed the marmot for a good while before recording while gathering my thoughts that this is really happening, I’m being guided by a marmot it seemed.. once I recorded, the marmot and I walked to a waterfall and sat until the sun came up after a while. My TikTok where newsflare reached out to me is PNWRainier where my video was originally posted.