Snake Season

We're slowly working my sister up to harder hikes and decided to take her to Dixie Mine and the petroglyphs on Sunday (still in the easy category). The weather is absolutely perfect (records being set in the 80s). Within 10 minutes of walking, some hikers warned us of a snake on the trail. Yep.



We walked waaaay around it and it didn't budge, but when we got to the other side and tried to look into a tarantula hole nearby, the snake started getting ticked off (notice rattle up, coil starting). Moving on!

About a half hour later, some hikers warned us of a snake on the side of the trail, but we never saw it. Not far from the mine, we saw this guy do the universal move for "Snake!" - a leap in the air accompanied by the obligatory curse word, customized by each terrorized individual. Once he saw where the snake was, he decided to take a picture of it, but the snake was really pissed.

When we walked up there, the snake was still quite annoyed and rattling away.

We walked waaaaaaay around this one too (after pictures and video shots), but it was really not happy with us. Apparently snakes can strike at a distance of 2/3rds their body weight (a 3' snake could leap 2') - I'm not sure we had that clearance, but as I've mentioned before, the snakes here aren't really that aggressive. You get plenty of time to leave them alone, assuming you don't accidentally step on them or do something stupid like try to pick them up.

Never-the-less, we started getting a little jumpy. We stayed in the middle of the trail the whole rest of the way, looking for any other serpents but made it to the mine and petroglyphs without any more encounters. I already took pics of this hike the last time we did it, but this time we saw a cave that must have been hidden before, just on the other side of the mine. It seemed to go pretty far back, but without a flashlight, we decided to leave it a mystery.



Michael, Protector from Snakes.

When we passed the area of our coiled friend on our return trip, he wasn't there. That was kind of unnerving - where was it - but not only did we not run into that snake again, but we didn't see any others either. Fine by us! Like us, snakes really like it between 80 and 90 degrees, over 110 and they die, so we'll have to start thinking about timing.

Upon our return home, we heard and then saw this chirpy cardinal.



Seems we all want to enjoy the great weather.