The American pika is a common resident of Colorado’s alpine talus. Open occurrence databases hold 3,668 records for it in Colorado, most of them iNaturalist photos from high rockslides above the tree line.
Where the pika lives
A pika needs broken rock beside alpine meadow. Talus and boulder fields give it cover and cool refuge, while the neighboring turf supplies the plants it eats, and that pairing sits high in Colorado’s mountains. Records concentrate in Larimer, Clear Creek, and Summit counties and in the alpine reaches of Rocky Mountain National Park, the White River National Forest, and Mount Blue Sky. Look, or rather listen, for a small round-eared animal about the size of a potato giving a sharp, bleating call from a rock perch.
A winter animal you only see in summer
Pika records spike hard in mid to late summer and nearly disappear by winter, but the animal itself never leaves and never sleeps through the cold. Unlike the marmots that share its slopes, the pika does not hibernate. It spends the autumn cutting and drying haypiles of vegetation, then lives on that stored hay beneath the insulating snowpack all winter. The seasonal record simply follows the hikers, who reach the high talus only once the snow clears.
A rabbit relative and a climate sentinel
Despite the mouse-like look, the pika is a lagomorph, a cousin of rabbits and hares rather than a rodent. It is also famously heat-sensitive and struggles to shed excess warmth, which makes its presence on a given slope a closely watched signal of how alpine climates are shifting.
Common questions
Is a pika a kind of mouse? No. It is a lagomorph, closely related to rabbits and hares, given away by its round body, short round ears, and absence of a visible tail.
Where should I look for one in Colorado? High talus and boulder fields next to alpine meadow, from roughly 11,000 feet up. Rocky Mountain National Park and the state’s alpine national forests are the reliable places.
Full species profile
