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mike m
Trad climber
black hills
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Topic Author's Original Post - Oct 4, 2011 - 06:14pm PT
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At Devil's Tower this weekend. Anyone been bitten while climbing. The guy I was climbing with said he found one on a ledge about 150ft up this summer.
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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A friend was in the Valley. He was flamed and running it out to the ledge.
Unbeknownst to him the ledge was occupied by a non-sharing sort. When Dan
slapped the ledge he got slapped and then whipped for about 50'! The fall
didn't bother him but by the time they got him down and to the hospital his
hand was pretty gnarly. It was so gnarly that I believe it ended his climbing.
I saw him a year later in a bar in Seattle and it was all he could do to hold
a pool cue!
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Brokedownclimber
Trad climber
Douglas, WY
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Nasty little bastards! I recall walking over the boulders on the way up to the start of the Durrance and hearing them buzzing down in the rocks.
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Seamstress
Trad climber
Yacolt, WA
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They are all over Tieton, Leavenworth and Smith. My little girl found a family of rattlers living in the stairs approaching Cinnamin Slab, a very busy beginning area at Smith. I don't know anyone who has been nitten, but I've seen a few who were asking to be bit.
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aliebling
climber
San Francisco, CA
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We ran in to one sunning in the middle of the path right below cookie cliff a few weeks ago. My partner nearly stepped right on it.
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Trusty Rusty
Social climber
Tahoe area
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Here's an aggressive one on a trail above Big Pine from last month. Buzz worms are synonymous with climbing in most of CA, we typically see 3-4 a year and that's when we're sober enough to look. Sketch to think how many we've all stepped over or walked right by unnoticed.
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StahlBro
Trad climber
San Diego, CA
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Treat them with respect
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stevep
Boulder climber
Salt Lake, UT
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Them's good eatin. Tastes like chicken.
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Friedo
Trad climber
South Lake Tahoe
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I saw 4 in one day at the Leap this past spring. My next day out at the Leap we saw two more. One was a baby right on the main trail. The other was at the base of "It's Better With Bacon". As I was walking up to the belay I heard a rattle. I jumped back and then realized I had a rack of nuts on my harness that brushed the rock. I laughed it off and then my partner went ahead of me. Then he jumped about 16 feet into the air and said..."Nope,You were right the first time, there's a snake under that rock..."
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steelmnkey
climber
Vision man...ya gotta have vision...
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Climbing near Phoenix in 2007, my buddy heads up a vertical crack. About 3/4ths of the way up, he says there's something in the crack. He carefully climbs around it. When I came up, I can get a good look at it, and there's a small (baby?) rattler in this crack. I almost soiled myself. Needless to say, I was less than amused. How 'bout that action?
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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At least rattlers give you some warning sometimes. A lot of the world they
just bite yer azz. At least 50,000 a year die in Asia and Africa.
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Capt.
climber
some eastside hovel
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Always wondered if the Mojave Green thing was just an old wives tale.If there was such a thing I was positive we didn't have them this far north.About this time of year two seasons ago saw one sitting in road out by roadsides.Young one but a definite Mojave right in front of my eyes.Super deadly.They say about seventeen times as toxic as a western diamondback.Uhhh yeah,they're real,and we have them this far north.
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bvb
Social climber
flagstaff arizona
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On the approach to Mission Gorge in the summer, it was a freaking gauntlet of rattlesnakes. I mean wtf. And it was like that all over San Diego county. I stepped on a rattlesnake once while walking out from my living room into my backyard. Pretty much saw at least one rattler every time I went climbing in San Diego. Saw a monster rattler bouldering at Santee with my son a couple of years back. Almost killed off white during an approach on Mt. Lemmon, climbing a steep talus field, almost stepped on a big black red-striped sucker, jumped out and away while twisting and my elbow clocked him in the noggin. That was a close call. Rattlers. Love 'em and hate 'em.
Oh right, almost got bit by a rattler that was sliding down the crack on leapin' leaner (sp?) at Josh. Got a picture of that somewhere.
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neebee
Social climber
calif/texas
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hey there say, reilly... how awful about your friend's hand, :(
glad he is alive, though...
say,as to those that die from snakes in asia and africa... i always was wondering how mom's could keep their little ones safe from things like that--toddlers are so curious and vulnerable... :(
thanks for sharing...
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steelmnkey
climber
Vision man...ya gotta have vision...
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Down in Cochise Stronghold nearly 20 years ago, we had some friends up climbing and they were late coming down. We were drinking beer while we waited for them, so by the time we could sort of hear them coming, a lot of stuff was sounding pretty funny. So we decided to wait behind some trees and scare the crap out of them. They nearly levitated when we jumped out and yelled. Turned out, they'd been dodging rattlers for nearly three hourse that had been laying out on the still-warm boulders in the drainage that they had to come down in the dark. Ooops. :-)
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Captain...or Skully
climber
Where are you bound?
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Only one encounter this year. It worked out.
I don't mind rattlers, mostly. It's all good.
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TomCochrane
Trad climber
Santa Cruz Mountains and Monterey Bay
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they belong in the wilderness (do you?)
they are highly aware and highly motivated to avoid you
for every one you see, there are many more you don't see
respect them and use the fact of their existence to hone your awareness
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mongrel
Trad climber
Truckee, CA
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Beautiful and marvelously evolved creatures. Would you prefer to be overrun by rodents? Having always ended up with the duty of dealing with a problem snake, I suppose it's natural to come to appreciate them. Once, hiking in carrying big packs with camping gear and water for a weekend in the S. Sierra with a rather snake-averse partner, we encountered a beefy one scrunched in a trailside nook, rattling up a storm. No reasonable way to bypass uphill (slippery, didn't want to slide down on top of it) or downhill (steep), so it fell to me to roust it out of the hole with a stick and shoo it off somewhere but the trail. Now that was one really mad rattler. Prudently, I never mentioned the two I later saw cruising by our tent - but I did make sure it stayed zipped closed all the time.
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doughnutnational
Gym climber
its nice here in the spring
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I live in the foothills east of Fresno, fortunately our Northern Pacific Rattle Snakes are quick to rattle an generally docile. That said they still scare me (part of the reason the picture is lame is my shaky hand)
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