Rattlesnake

Post by Greg:

On August 15th I was hiking with my sister up Shadow Canyon trail near Boulder. There’s a lot of semi-arid, scrubby open space on this trail before you get to the forested part. It’s also steep, with a lot of natural and semi-natural steps made out of rocks. Because of the steps, you can’t see every square inch of the trail as you’re coming down. As we were climbing this segment of the trail, a man, girl, boy and dog were coming down, toward us. This sequence of events proceeded to unfold:

* Boy (age 9-ish) and dog are running ahead toward us.
* Boy, in mid-stride, spots rattlesnake coiled underfoot, in middle of trail.
* Boy has no choice, jumps over, lets out yelp of fright in midair.
* Dog follows, hops over snake.
* By this time snake is signaling his alarm.
* Boy and dog land on trail near us. Boy, unharmed, is whimpering and visibly shaken.
* Man and girl (age 40-ish and 9-ish) have stopped. Man comments, deadpan, “That is a rattlesnake.”
* Sis and I have only now become fully cognizant of situation.
* Dog lunges toward snake, growling. Humans urge dog to back off. Snake urges dog to back off.
* Dog enters striking radius, backs off after repeated commands, somehow unbitten.
* Everyone pauses to catch breath, maintaining healthy distance from snake.

Eventually, the man and girl circumvented the snake by picking through the brambles on the south side of the trail. They were relieved, and all four continued down after a few minutes. Sis and I were left wondering what to do. Should we turn around? Should we circumvent the snake and keep going up? If we came back by the same route, where will the snake have moved to? Should we attempt to kill the snake?

Since there were so many people on the trail, including kids and dogs, we decided this was not the snake’s lucky day. We’d neglected to bring sidearms or small explosives, however, so there was a lot of deliberating as to the best approach. We crossed the brambles to the upper part of the trail, still debating. An older couple passed by, navigating the brambles. The lady stumbled and got scratched up in the bushes. They continued on.

After psyching myself up for about fifteen minutes, I dug up a football-sized rock, did a few practice throws, and lobbed it at the snake. I missed by two feet on the first toss. The snake, he was not amused. I scrambled for another rock. And another, and another, and another; eight in all. And then a lot of whacking with a stick. Suffice to say, Mr. Snake met its demise that day, however he fought valiantly. I could feel his fangs scratching and gnawing the end of the stick.

We took a moment of silence to commemorate our fallen foe and to reflect upon the universal struggle of nature. Then we cast his snaky remains aside for the foxes and continued up the trail.