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Mungeclimber
Trad climber
Nothing creative to say
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May 31, 2016 - 02:14pm PT
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looks bomb!
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BASE104
Social climber
An Oil Field
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May 31, 2016 - 03:06pm PT
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I never see them. I know two climbers who were bitten while in the Wichita Mountains, but I've never seen a damn one. Always looking up, I guess. Others see them all of the time.
I did see them when I was a 12 year old kid, and we would poke sticks under rocks and in tiny caves to find them and then mess with them. Lucky none of us were ever bitten.
One of the guys who was bitten was Tony Mayse, who spends a fair amount of time in the Valley. It bit him in the leg as he was walking a short trail to a bouldering area. He made it to his car, only a short distance away, and made it to refuge HQ, where they drove him to Lawton. His was a bad case. Spent days in the hospital.
He said that the pain was unbelievable.
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curlie
Trad climber
SLO, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - May 31, 2016 - 03:27pm PT
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couchmaster - was that the point of this thread? I was starting to think I had just woken up this morning with a strange desire see how many people I could rile up on the internet by casually calling a snake an as#@&%e. :) OK in all seriousness, thanks, and yes, just trying to give others a heads-up so they might not get the same scare I did.
I had been sitting on that rock for probably about 45 minutes, got up to fetch my jacket and pee, wasn't really looking in that direction when I got back to the base, reached for my chalkbag, then saw the movement and heard the hiss and heard the rattle all at the same time. Jumped out of my skin and yelled F*#K! for a while. Even though I had just been on the lookout for snakes when I went to pee (they are pretty common around there, seen a few on previous trips), I still didn't see it when it was plainly out in the open 2 minutes later. I know the snake was not out to get me, but I do feel lucky that I didn't get bit. It's not exactly a short trip from there to a hospital.
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johntp
Trad climber
socal
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May 31, 2016 - 03:40pm PT
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Seen a few rattlers, BUT one time I was bouldering at Morena Lake outside of San Diego. I'm about 15' feet up and the crack went wild with shaky tails. So I launched. Freaked the crap out of me.
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Gary
Social climber
Where in the hell is Major Kong?
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May 31, 2016 - 07:07pm PT
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The Pacific rattlers don't bother me. Western Diamondbacks, OTOH, scare the bjeezus out of me.
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