The Ballad of Picktail and the Eternal Haul

The burrow was a symphony of snores. January had settled over Rocky Mountain National Park like a weighted blanket, woven from snow and existential dread. Nutmeg McChunky was three months deep into his Maintenance of the Sphere protocol, occasionally twitching a paw in a dream-snack, while other marmots achieved metabolic rates usually reserved for decorative pebbles.

But not all. Three meters below the pristine, snow-choked surface, a different kind of ambition was stirring. A rasping, dusty ambition.

“Consarnit, you lazy lumps! This ain’t no time for dream-nappin’!” a voice like grinding gravel echoed through the freshly dug tunnel. Prospector Picktail Grumblepelt, resplendent in his battered miner’s helmet, the headlamp flickering erratically, stabbed his rusted fork into the unforgiving earth. “There’s gold in these here hills, I tell ya! Legume-gold! The Orange Dust of Destiny! The Eternal Picnic ain’t gonna dig itself!”

Picktail Grumblepelt had always said the Eternal Picnic was real. Not metaphorically real. Not spiritually real. Geologically real. A place beneath the mountain where snacks flowed freely, wrappers were plentiful and no one ever yelled, “Hey! Don’t feed the wildlife!”

Most marmots humored him the way you humor a relative who claims the moon landing was staged by squirrels.

But on one particular winter night, while the Alpine Visitor Center sat snowed in, shuttered and silent under thirty feet of drift, Picktail finally struck pay dirt.

He was, of course, talking to himself. The nearest marmot, a fluffy youngster named Pip, was so deeply asleep he could have been mistaken for a particularly robust rock formation. Picktail merely grumbled, “Soft-pawed flufflings. Don’t know true grit if it bit ‘em on the tail.”

He stood hunched at the far end of the burrow, helmet askew, rusted spoon clenched like Excalibur. The colony slept behind him in a perfect hibernation pile. Forty marmots in metabolic truce, breathing slow enough to frighten medical science.

Picktail, however, was awake.

He always was.

“This ain’t no ordinary mountain,” he rasped. “I can feel it. Hollow spots. Snack pressure. History.”

The Big Dig

For weeks, while the other marmots dreamed of dandelions, Picktail had been on a singular mission. He’d dismissed the Great Opt-Out as a “yellow-bellied cop-out” and had instead commenced his magnum opus: a tunnel of epic proportions, aimed squarely at the legendary Eternal Picnic.

His intel, gleaned from years of eavesdropping on “above-ground thinkers”, pointed to a grand treasure-filled structure: the Alpine Visitor Center. “They hibernate it for the winter, them humans,” he’d cackle to a pile of dirt. “Leave all their shiny things for Ol’ Picktail! Just like the Pikes Peak Rush, I tell ya! Only this time, the gold comes in crinkly wrappers!”

The tunnel was a marvel of marmot engineering and sheer stubbornness. He’d navigated frozen roots, dodged subterranean rocks bigger than the entire burrow and meticulously shored up sections with discarded pine cones. His rusted spoon (the “shovel”) and bent fork (the “pick”) were working overtime.

“Consarnit,” Picktail muttered, spitting a pebble aside. “This dirt’s got no ambition.”

Finally, after what felt like an entire geological epoch (or maybe just a really long Saturday), his pick clanged against something hollow. “Eureka! Or whatever these soft-pawed flufflings say!” he rasped, burrowing the next few inches.

“This here’s destiny.” And with that, he dug.

Beneath the Eternal Picnic

Picktail tunneled for hours. Or days. Or what he called “a good respectable shift.” The dirt changed texture. The rocks got smoother. Stranger. Processed, even.

A cavernous, dark space opened up. The air was thin, cold and smelled faintly of stale pretzels. Above Picktail, a bewildering array of brightly colored boxes glittered in the dim light filtering from a distant snow-covered window.

He paused and sniffed. “What in the name of compacted sediment…”

There it was, in the distance, a faint humming glow. A warm breeze carrying the unmistakable scent of corn syrup and despair.

Picktail burst through the final gap and tumbled into a cavern of legends, the heart of the Eternal Picnic!

“Shiver me whiskers!” Picktail breathed, his one good eye wide with avarice. “A whole mountain of treasure! Consarnit, the veins are rich!”

The Eternal Picnic Revealed

It wasn’t a meadow. It wasn’t wicker picnic baskets as far as the eye could see. It was a massive glowing box with a transparent front, loaded with picnic food!

Picktail stared.

The encased food stared back. Rows of brightly colored packages gleamed behind glass like gemstones trapped in amber. Granola bars. Candy. Trail mix. Peanut M&Ms.

Picktail removed his helmet. “…Well, I’ll be gold-darned.”

Dr. Helena Burrowtail would later write: “Subject appears to have discovered a human food distribution artifact and immediately reframed it as destiny.”

Picktail didn’t hesitate.

He set to work. Using his fork, he tried to pry open the glass. Useless. He tried to ram the machine. His “Maintenance of the Sphere” was nowhere near the required mass for such an endeavor. “Blast it all to blazes! This ain’t no honest seam!”

He dug around the machine, levering it free with the expertise of someone who had spent decades excavating rocks that absolutely did not need excavation.

The machine tipped. Something clattered. And suddenly, loot!

A bag of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos slid across the floor. Picktail stared. “The Orange Dust of Destiny! It’s real! And it answers to the mighty pick!”

Picktail spent the next hour working his rusty tools like a maestro of mechanical mischief. It was slow going. Sometimes a bag of Peanut M&Ms would drop, sometimes a Nature Valley Granola Bar, which he immediately declared “low-grade ore, but edible”. He even managed to liberate a bag of Doritos, which he instantly classified as “Triangular Gold”.

“Back in my diggin’ days, we had to pan for this kinda richness!” he muttered, stuffing a bag of Skittles into his cheek pouches, already stretched beyond their natural limits.

The Infinite Haul

Picktail dragged the bags of loot back through his tunnel, a grizzled, fur-covered locomotive pulling a ridiculously valuable caboose. He burst back into the main burrow chamber, panting, covered in dust and smelling faintly of chili powder.

Nutmeg McChunky, stirred by the vibrations, slowly opened one sleepy eye. He blinked at the pile of bright, crinkly bags. He sniffed the air, a strange mix of synthetic cheese and stale chocolate. “Is… is it spring?” he asked.

“No,” Picktail said proudly. “It’s commerce.”

Cap’n Cheeks McSnatch stirred next, eyes wide. “Arrr… is this plunder?”

“Aye,” Picktail said, mockingly. “And ethically sourced. Dug it myself.”

Master Squeak Windwhisker sniffed a granola bar, eyes closed. “The lunch was restless,” he murmured. “It wished to be free.”

Mossback McGrump picked up a granola bar with a picture of a mountain on it. He gave it a sniff. “False advertising, but promising.”

Picktail stood triumphantly over his loot, chest puffed out. “The Eternal Picnic, you soft-pawed flufflings! I found it! And I mined the mother lode!” He gestured wildly with his rusted spoon. “Now, who’s for some Orange Dust of Destiny?! We’ll eat like kings ‘til December! Mark my words, this mountain’s got more secrets than a hawk’s conscience!”

Nutmeg just blinked, slowly processing the bounty and then curled back into his perfect sphere. “Wake me when the dandelions are real,” he yawned, already drifting back to sleep.

Picktail just scoffed. “Consarnit. Above-ground thinkers. Don’t know a true treasure when it hits ‘em in the snout.” He gnawed on a Cheeto, the faint crunch echoing in the slumbering burrow. “More for Ol’ Picktail, then.”

Aftermath

By morning, a concept marmots treat loosely, the burrow was quiet again. Picktail sat atop his pile, helmet crooked, spoon planted triumphantly in the dirt.

Ol’ Whiskers sighed. “So. Eternal Picnic?”

Picktail nodded solemnly. “Turns out it takes exact change. And structural damage.”

Above them, months later, rangers would discover a vending machine torn apart, the floor mysteriously intact and absolutely no explanation that held up in a report.

Dr. Burrowtail closed her notebook. “Conclusion,” she said. “Never underestimate a marmot with nostalgia, tools and unresolved snack trauma.”

Picktail leaned back, satisfied. “Back in my diggin’ days,” he said, already drifting off, “they told me the Eternal Picnic was a myth.” He smiled. “Mountain just didn’t want no competition.”

And somewhere beneath Rocky Mountain National Park, a marmot slept, dreaming not of gold, but of Row B, Item 6.

Happy Speak Like a Grizzled Prospector Day!