I was having a break at the Quarry Gap shelter in southern Pennsylvania's Michaux State forest. I was there, a father and a daughter ending a weekend hike, and another guy just starting a long distance hike through PA. We were hanging out, chatting, doing this and that. I was sitting on a picnic table, eating oatmeal when I glanced at the fire pit. Crawling out of the rocks was a rattlesnake. A big rattlesnake. As thick in parts as my wrist and about three and a half feet long. It crawled over the firepit (where, incidentally, that little girl had been sitting and playing around just a few minutes earlier) and across the ground, up the embankment and into the woods.
After being nearly bitten by a rattlesnake in Guadalupe Mountains National Park in 2006, I respect the creatures, but have no interest whatsoever in being near them. I lifted my feet off the ground and it took a few minutes after the snake was gone before I'd put them back on the ground.
I knew rattlers were around this area, but nothing like seeing one to nail the point home. Later on in the day, when I was hopping over boulders like a mountain goat, I kept a closer watch on where my feet were landing.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment