Man…I love to hang out in the woods, but up here in MN our biggest concerns are woodticks and the occasional black bear or mountain-lion. We don’t have the scary snakes up here…

This guy, he gets an A+ for keeping his composure. I cannot say that I would not have reflexively jumped up…wow.

No doubt the snake knew something was there from the heat detecting pits on his head; it was clearly in alert mode, but thankfully not defensive mode.

Thankfully there was someone there with a camera.

Actually I was bit years ago, it’s very serious. I don’t want to remember……

Let's poke it's tail and see what happens.

Staged…instead of standing there camera guy should have gotten a stick and prodded it away…but no..let’s see if we can make a video…dude deserves to be bitten.

And if on the outside chance I was with someone who was videotaping everything, I’d have given him a beat down for not chasing the snake away.

While camping in the late 50's, a friend called out that a snake had him cornered. A Timber Rattler had crawled up behind him when he was taking a dump. I shot the snake's head with a Winchester 1890.

quote:

Originally posted by MikeinNC:
Staged…instead of standing there camera guy should have gotten a stick and prodded it away…but no..let’s see if we can make a video…dude deserves to be bitten.<snip>

Maybe, maybe not; depends on the direction given to the camera person. I remember when the dude fell into the fire on Survivor, people reacted negatively that the camera people did not attempt to help. The producer at that time (2001) had this to say:

Mark Burnett, Survivor executive producer, would not say Friday whether cameras caught the actual accident. But he said that had any Survivor camera operator dropped his gear to help Skupin, that person "would have been fired on the spot."

"You do not leave the camera," he said. "There are enough other people around (to take care of the injured).

I've been hiking/camping around the American Southwest most of my life except for a four year stint in Georgia. Never saw a rattle snake until last summer. The one pictured below was rattling and coiling about 8 inches from Mrs DF's ankle. As usual she was under shod; wearing Teva style sandals rather than boots. She froze when she heard the buzzing rattle. I looked down and saw it coiling. I grabbed her day pack and yanked her back to a safe distance. I resisted the reflex to tease and poke at the snake. Took this picture instead. Now Mrs DF wears some Red Wing Logger boots with snake gaiters. She could easily have been bitten had circumstances been slightly different.



ETA: I take back that I never saw a rattlesnake until last summer. Saw one while relieving myself in the brush back in '04. Had forgotten about that.

Living in NM for several years I only ran across three, a baby rattler maybe 10” long early one vending on the blacktop at work, one while junkyarding one afternoon, heard the buzz and I froze in place. Last one was crossing the highway in front of me between 3-4 feet in length.

I've come across a few in Oregon. I gained a lot of respect for them because they let you know they are there, and given a way out always take it.

Cottonmouths on the other hand...

I've run across a couple in the last 2 or 3 decades. The one that I found most disconcerting was a rattlesnake, in a sagebrush. He had apparently climbed up there to get in the shade and off the hot ground. He was almost thigh level to me.
I had become used to watching where I walked but never paid much attention to whether I brushed up against sagebrush. He never even rattled .....

Rattlesnakes in California is normal. However, I've been surprised where I found them. At the base of Half Dome (near the cables) at 8500' at the base of a small boulder. No visible food source anywhere.

Then last summer hiking on the Lost Coast Trail, one of the last stretches of inaccessible beaches in California. The shuttle driver told us to watch out for rattlers. I dismissed him because we'd be hiking on the beach the entire 26 miles. On the first night, I encountered a rattler in the light brush, just 10 yards from high tide marker. Repeat the next morning while leaving camp.

Ive had two diamondback rattlers in my yard in the past year. One was on my damn stoop/walkway to get into my house. If I had been coming out of the house, I would have stepped on it, but thankfully I was walking INTO the house, and I saw it.

Rattlers in my yard go to snake heaven.