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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Aug 28, 2018 - 11:40am PT
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Yes it could have especially in view of the fact that a truly dead rattler can still bite yer arse.
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Jon Beck
Trad climber
Oceanside
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Aug 28, 2018 - 11:47am PT
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I heard a story about a group backpacking in the Grand Canyon. Someone woke up to see a rattler coiled on top of a sleeping person, they had to flick it off with a stick without waking the person up.
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Pete_N
Trad climber
Santa Cruz, CA
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Aug 28, 2018 - 12:53pm PT
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Reilly: That depends on how you define "dead"! ;-)
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StahlBro
Trad climber
San Diego, CA
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Aug 28, 2018 - 01:00pm PT
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Ran into this lil’ fella coming around a corner on MTB patrol last week. Didn’t rattle much, but the hissing and loud wheezing were really impressive.
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AP
Trad climber
Calgary
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Aug 28, 2018 - 01:15pm PT
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Encountered a sizable rattler while hiking with family and dog in the Escalante area years ago .
The snake was hiding from the sun in a small alcove when we passed by. It started rattling and my dog did the sensible thing watching the snake from 10 feet away. He was probably thinking "I don't know what that is but he does not sound friendly"
The encounter went the way it was supposed to and everyone was safe
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BigB
Trad climber
Red Rock
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Aug 28, 2018 - 03:56pm PT
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Red Rock a month or so ago
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Vegasclimber
Trad climber
Las Vegas, NV.
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Aug 28, 2018 - 05:02pm PT
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Climbing at Swan Slab last Spring - I told the gal that she might want to wait a few minutes before grabbing her harness. Eventually it wandered off towards the bike path.
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10b4me
Social climber
Lida Junction
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Aug 29, 2018 - 07:37am PT
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over the years I only saw two rattlesnakes in Joshua tree
same here, but have certainly heard more.
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kaholatingtong
Trad climber
The fake McCoy from nevernever land.
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Aug 29, 2018 - 10:05am PT
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Edit : 11 Rattles I believe on this beauty, right next to the Merced in Little Yosemite Valley.
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Nick Danger
Ice climber
Arvada, CO
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Aug 29, 2018 - 11:11am PT
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I've encountered so many rattlers as a geologist working in the desert that I have come to think of them as family. Seriously, if it weren't for rattle snakes and ravens I would have nobody to talk to in the field.
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clode
Trad climber
portland, or
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Aug 29, 2018 - 11:49am PT
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Nick, that's why I always have two women at a time. That way, if I fall asleep they have someone they can talk to!
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steelmnkey
climber
Vision man...ya gotta have vision...
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Aug 29, 2018 - 12:33pm PT
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over the years I only saw two rattlesnakes in Joshua tree
same here, but have certainly heard more.
Saw two pretty good sized rattlers on the same day, both up at Keys View crawling around. There was a lady tourist strolling down the sidewalk that they were next to and we did our best to give her a heads up that there were two snakes very near, but I guess she felt we were impacting her wilderness experience, because she pretty much fully ignored our attempts to save her from a possible bite, staring and walking straight on. She was completely oblivious, and stayed that way all the way to the parking lot.
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Tobia
Social climber
Denial
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Aug 29, 2018 - 01:15pm PT
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Eastern diamondback's (Crotalus adamanteus), cousins to the western diamondback (Crotalus atrox), have slowly migrated southward into FL in my lifetime, at one time they ruled all of the southeastern states.
Over the years timber or canebrake rattlesnakes (Crotalus horridus) have seemingly taken over. My experiences with them is they will slither away, rattle constantly or feint striking before resorting to a full fledged strike. Good thing since their venom is highly toxic. It is also the snake that is displayed on the Gadsen Flag.
The sneakiest pit viper I deal with is the copperhead (Agkistrodon contortrix). They turn up everywhere - houses, barns, horse stalls, boats, boots, etc. Not as large as rattlesnakes and seem to blend in with leaves, trees, boards, and everything else. One good habit they have is dry biting.
Since I don't roam the woodlands as I once did either for sport or cruising timber, I have less encounters, except for the copperheads. They just like people or their habitats it seems.
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aspendougy
Trad climber
Los Angeles, CA
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Aug 29, 2018 - 03:37pm PT
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My Grandmother used to take the family backpacking into Pate Valley back in the 1930's. She said that when Hetch Hetchy was filled with water, all the rattlers moved up to Pate Valley, and so it was full of them. One of the people on a trip woke up in the morning with a rattler inside the sleeping bag, it had crawled into the tent and into the bag at night.
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thebravecowboy
climber
The Good Places
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Aug 29, 2018 - 05:35pm PT
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the buzzworm that lives in the trail register at that one trailhead is pretty chill during the day, just hiding in there away from the blazing hot treeless expanse. get up to pee in the dark though, and you'd best tread mindfully because that f*#ker owns the night.
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AP
Trad climber
Calgary
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Aug 29, 2018 - 08:23pm PT
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There is a route at Skaha called Ready to Strike. During the first ascent the belayer watched a sizeable rattler crawling into the depths of his pack. They had to shake it out.
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Fossil climber
Trad climber
Atlin, B. C.
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Aug 30, 2018 - 05:56pm PT
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When I was a kid my buddy and I killed a rattler (haven't done that since} and brought it to town in a paper bag. Buddy's sister worked at a soda fountain. (Remember those?) So we ordered Cokes and she turned away to get them and we laid the snake out on the counter in front of us. When she came back to set the Cokes in front of us - well, there was Coke all over the room.
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Chaz
Trad climber
greater Boss Angeles area
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Aug 30, 2018 - 06:12pm PT
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Next one I find I'm going to put in an Amazon box and leave it by the front gate for whoever is stealing packages around here.
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Q- Ball
Mountain climber
but to scared to climb them anymore
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Aug 31, 2018 - 08:51am PT
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My family was up on the mountains, when my little three year old brother sat next to one. My father caught it and stuck in a minnow trap.
Some guy showed up asking,"what are you going to with it?" Dad told the fellow, " The preacher has been needing some". Haha! Sums up my dads typical response to strangers.
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Aug 31, 2018 - 09:38am PT
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BITD when everyone knew everybody in the Washington climbing world the word got out that a certain worthy was going to try the FFA of an overhang on Lower Castle Rock near Leavenworth. A couple of wags, perhaps well known to many here, went over the day before. They found a worthy rattler, a blind deaf person could do that in the Tumwater, killed it without a lot of gore, and rapped down to the ledge just above the overhang and neatly coiled it. They knew said worthy would come to no physical harm as there was a bomber fixed pin right at the business. The next day the wags joined the unenlightened spectators and awaited the show. The show went off beyond their expectations with a worthy scream and flight and much ooing and ahhing by the unenlighted who were enlightened by a horrified
“THERE’S A RATTLER ON THE LEDGE!”
Needless to say, the wags’ laughter gave them away and they had rather a time of it convincing the worthy to give it another go.
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