High in the talus fields of the American West, where meadows give way to rock and scrub, lives a small, round, surprisingly loud mammal that has quietly inspired its own annual internet event. It's called Fat Pika Week, and it's the work of photographer Deidre Denali Rosenberg, who has spent more than a decade photographing American pikas in the mountains of the Four Corners region.
The American pika is a high-alpine cousin of the rabbit — tiny, round-eared, and famously charismatic. They're also hardy homesteaders: pikas spend short mountain summers gathering and curing hay piles to survive winters in their rocky habitat, which is one reason some individuals look notably plump by season's end. A healthy, chubby pika is essentially a pika that prepared well.
Rosenberg, who has spent enough time in certain meadows to recognise individual pikas from year to year, began noticing more of these sturdy specimens during the 2020 season. The observation sparked the idea for Fat Pika Week, an annual campaign launched as a playful riff on Katmai National Park's hugely popular Fat Bear Week. The point is twofold: celebrate the undeniable cuteness of well-fed pikas, and draw attention to the threats they face. Pikas are a climate-sensitive species — they're adapted to cold alpine conditions and can overheat in warm temperatures, making them one of the most closely watched mammals in the American mountain West as summers heat up.
For travellers, the story is a good excuse to look closer the next time you're hiking above treeline. Pikas live exactly where alpine hikers do — talus slopes, boulder fields and meadows at high elevation across the Rockies, the Sierra Nevada and the Cascades. They're often heard before they're seen, emitting sharp squeaks and bleats to warn neighbours of your approach. Stop quietly near a boulder field and you'll often spot one darting between rocks with a mouthful of grass.
For anyone planning a hiking trip through Colorado, Utah, Arizona or New Mexico, the Four Corners region — where those states meet — offers excellent high-country access, and the pika's summer activity window doubles as prime hiking season. If your trip timing lines up with Fat Pika Week in autumn, you might even catch the online voting and its parade of remarkably round contestants.
Why does a camera contest about chubby rodents matter to a holidaymaker? Because it turns a casual alpine hike into something with a story. Spotting a pika hauling hay across a talus slope is one of the small, memorable wins of mountain travel — and knowing that these animals are climate indicators makes each sighting feel a bit more meaningful. Bring a zoom lens, keep a respectful distance, and don't feed or handle wildlife. The pikas are busy enough fattening up on their own.