SNAKES

Greg D......that's a Gopher Snake, Bull Snake, or Pine Snake. Unfortunately, some uneducated Creton killed it, but once their home/neighborhood is overrun with rats, mice, and other rodents the reality of their ignorance may set in.

Out of curiosity, would the typical health insurance plan cover any share of the crazy expensive anti-venom? Lots of Copperheads in the Gunks...

Matt Collins wrote:That looks like a rubber boa. They are also pretty prevalent at Lovers Leap along with rattlers. That place is sanke heaven, but not nearly as bad as AZ or cottonwood from what it sounds like. They are crazy snakes though, I have ran in to ones off the deck on belay ledges.

Rubber boas are awesome. I just came across the biggest one I've seen yet, at Ten Sleep last month.

rubber boa

Sucks about the gopher snake in the original post. I used to always have a couple of those as pets when i was growing up. Cool animals, and fairly mellow.

As for other snake stories, I've had too rattlesnakes fall on my head while climbing, had to climb past on wedged in a crack two pitches up in Red Rocks, taken a near groundfall that left me dangling two feet above a copperhead at the RRG, and been confronted by an inbred kid in Crawford, TX, who had nothing but a stick, a pair of boxers, and a half-head-bashed-in, twitching, striking, water moccasin.

This guy was climbing a vertical crack in Penitente. They can climb!

Western Diamondback

Snake I saw up in Eldo Canyon last year.. I think it's a garter snake.

Snake

Water Moccasin at The Church.

I like snakes. I think they are really neat. Although I must admit i do jump of I encounter one unexpectantly. Nonetheless, whenever I do see one I am pretty stoked.
A few years back while climbing in Yosemite a "fake coral" snake came rIght out of the crack I was climbing. Although not poisonous I shit my pants....lol

As for creepy crawly things I prefer spiders. Have raised several over the years. But I guess we need a spider thread for that.

Greg D wrote: Now that he is dead are there any good uses for it after I scare the pants off my gf? Etc.

Be sure to get a picture of that too.

Snake in a hold - Muay Thai Wall Railay east.

What otherwise would have been a fantastic hold. Muay Thai Wall Railay east.

Definitely looks like a Gopher snake, but they are not found in NY. The closest that any member of Pituophis comes to NY is the Northern Pine Snake which is found in the southern NJ Pine Barrens. There are numerous examples of isolated populations of animals found far from there main distribution, perhaps this is the case here.

Hey TimT, who is that crazy guy in the picture with the black mamba
:-) ?? And what about the guy in the background who looks like watching a black mamba up close is something he does every day?

Hope you're well.

Brad

I'll post pics later of different snakes, but I have a pretty cool story with a shameless name-drop.

Maybe 25 years ago, I was leading one of my first 5.11s, Tick Fever in Little Cottonwood Canyon. About 20 or 30' up, on moderate crack, my partner yelled something and the rope started wiggling. I looked down and he was throwing rocks at a large rattlesnake about 10' away that seemed to be approaching.

I found the best rest stance I could and waited while he held the rope with one hand and scooped and threw rocks with the other. The snake turned and slithered about 15 feet and disappeared under a bush.

A little rattled, I fought up the pitch (taking a big whipper at the unexpected high crux). On the descent we found the perished dude in coiled repose.

My snake slaying belayer that day? A beginner named Boone Speed.

Awesome replies. Keep them coming.

Bryan G wrote:Not a good photo, but a week ago we found this dude chillin at the start of a climb in Courtright. I don't know anything about snakes so I have no idea what type it is, but I think it's harmless. I've seen a couple king snakes (I think that's what they are) in the talus this year here in the Valley, but no rattlers so far.

Rubber Boa

I've had tons of encounters with snakes while biking...half the time they're already dead but when you're moving quick and/or not paying attention they still startle the crap out of you as you generally don't know they're dead until you're past them.

Only once did I have an encounter with a snake on a climbing trip. I was at Pinnacles in California, and there's a tunnel cut through the rock that we had to walk through. It's reasonably long and there was no lights inside, so by the time you're in the middle it's nearly pitch black. We didn't have lights, so we used our cellphones to slowly move through the tunnel. When I heard a noise, I moved the phone down near my feet and realized that I was standing about 2 feet from a baby rattler. He didn't strike but it sure startled the hell out of me and could have been bad if he did strike.

Rattlesnakes.
Four of them in a Central Utah canyon, a foot or so from the trail.

July, 2010.

Funny story on the anti-venom, after my Diamondback bite as soon as I got into the emergency room they tested me for an allergic reaction to the anti-venom; pricked my arm with a small does and waited for something to happen, which it didn't so I was good to go.

About two weeks later my bite area started to swell up again and I got very creepy looking veins, my first reaction was "oh no, the anti-venom failed"! At the emergency room the doctor told me that it was a delayed reaction to the anti-venom, I subsequently broke out in full-body hives for about three days - man it was irritating and the only place I could find relief was in a warm bath.

Zach Pickard wrote:It made its way into a hole by my be layer as I hit the ground with enough time to snatch it up by its tail.

Uh, some guy back in Texas grabbed a rattler by the tail as it was disappearing into a hole and the snake leveraged off his tail and bit the guy. I wouldn't do that again if I were you. I see timt also mentioned this.

Once when I was visiting 0-9 Well cave in Texas, we noticed three snakes had fallen down the entrance pit and were hanging around in the water at the base of the rope climb. There was little chance they could slither out, since the walls are pretty sheer. So, we identified each as some sort of non-poisonos variety and put them in our backpacks and climbed out. Hopefully they weren't too tired to find food later. One was orange and white.

many many snake stories. i've probably seen thirty rattlers and twice that number of copperheads over the years. the south is full of pit vipers and some of them are snakes. any way, i was bouldering in cashiers a few years ago, in a thicket of wild blue berries. boulder a few moves, eat a few berries. good life when you can get it. sitting on the pad i look up into a blue berry bush and realize there is some kind of mass hanging in the bush. i lean forward and peer upward,puzzled, my mind trying to make sense of this object. talk about an ah-ha moment, it's the belly scales of a 3 foot timber rattler. i guess he was laying in wait for a bird to come in after the berries. fortunately for me his head was opposite mine and after the initial shock of seeing that aspect of a rattlesnake, i declared a truce and moved on. never have felt quite the same about bungling through the cashiers jungle though.

A few more I found. These were all on a trip to Smith rock apparently during snake breeding season. We saw 23 in 1 day.

Climbing partner with one of many snakes.

Another snake.

Little one.

Gettin' busy on the road.

One more.