Honestly, we do not go out of our way to find rattlesnakes. It just seems to happen several times a year. Luckily, except for that one time Willow got badly bitten in the San Bernardino National Forest, all the other interactions have been relaxed, non-confrontational and only rarely in need of my Snake Stick skills.
Our latest encounters happened almost exactly one year since the last encounter and in essentially the same place…in one of the two meetings literally 3 feet from the last time we needed to use my snake transportation skills. And just as last year’s incident I was sitting in the same chair, in the same spot at around the same time of the day reading a book as Gia was harassing the local lizard population when I saw, out of the corner of my eye, her behavior suddenly change. That quick jump backwards and then the quizzical look immediately indicated to me that we were being blessed/cursed with another rattlesnake encounter. I put down my book and went over to take a look…
So this large, obviously adult snake was laying out sunning itself in a spot literally 3 feet from where we found the smaller but still adult rattlesnake last year. And just like then, that spot is single digit feet from the side of where the Tacoma is sitting and even closer to the little pathway we use when walking on that side of the truck. Also like that previous instance, I either did not see the snake earlier in the day or it came out at its desired sunning time in the early afternoon. I expect it wasn’t there earlier as Gia seems to be quite adept at finding snakes and alerting me to their presence. Again, the choice was between taking an hour and breaking down the campsite and moving, while something that can easily hurt or even kill either of us is sitting right there or moving the snake across the road/creek to safer ground, for all of us. As before we chose the quicker, easier way of just moving the snake. This time I remembered my snake class training and first removed Gia from the equation by getting her over to and secured in the truck. Now, not having to worry about her wanting to “help” in the process I could quietly grab my snake stick from where it was stashed and proceed to calmly and gently pick up the snake and move it across the road.
Now that the fat danger noodle was safely across the road and we were all out of immediate peril Gia and I decided to take a walk away from the general area and check out other possible camp spots for future reference. I brought along my snake stick just in case. It is about a half mile, one-way trip walking essentially parallel to Josephine Creek down to where the last hint of “road” ends at a turn-around with a little feeder stream adding its trickle to the creek. In that short space of distance and time we found several turn offs with flat areas having shaded portions suitable for our future campsite needs. On the walk out and in those acceptable spots we encountered no rattlesnakes and the snake stick went from being held in front like a visually impaired person holding their White Cane to more like a riding crop held in my armpit area.
On the walk back though the snake stick came in handy yet again. The path was somewhat shaded with a bit of sunlight streaming between closely growing trees. This back and forth brightening and back to shade again was playing havoc on my low light vision. Luckily I was walking on the left side of the path just a few feet in front of Gia. Suddenly, in my peripheral vision I saw Gia jump up and back and when I turned she had that quizzical look on her face. I remember a little white moth or butterfly flew up and past her and I chided her for being a little weeny…and then she continued to sniff the area in front of her and then, again, made an abrupt jump backwards. Wondering what all the fuss was about and now that my low-light vision was coming back into play I finally noticed the younger rattlesnake curled up on the right side of the path mere feet in front of her.
It was a little less thrilled about me moving it a bit off the path and was rattling its annoyance the whole time but, as with its big brethren earlier in the day, the move went off without any issues. Feel free to ignore my idiotic verbal patter with the snake…it certainly did.
Happily (and somewhat surprisingly) Gia made no move to get involved and actually stayed out of the way which made the process quick and easy.
So now with dangerous snakes seemingly all over the place we decided that maybe this general area, for all its charms and pluses, might not be as suitable as we used to think. I know weather and the time of the year play an important part in rattlesnake activity and I am assuming the late fall through early spring seasons would be colder and safer for us but I still think we need to go and do some more exploring in the area and find some other spots. The next time we come through this area I will plan on getting here a little earlier in the day so we have some quality exploration time. I am guessing that there are hundreds of miles of Forest Service roads to check out in the 1.8 million acres of the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest and I expect we will be able to find at least a couple more good spots to add to our list if we explore even a tiny portion of them.
Hope you find some new spots on your next adventure.
Walk carefully out there.