Grab your bear can or camp chair, kick your feet up and chew the fat about anything Sierra Nevada related that doesn't quite fit in any of the other forums. Within reason, (and the HST rules and guidelines) this is also an anything goes forum. Tell stories, discuss wilderness issues, music, or whatever else the High Sierra stirs up in your mind.
Hi, I've also encountered many rattle snakes in the Sierra and elsewhere. Usually when I'm least expecting them. When I'm looking out for them, I almost never see any. Go figure... My highest encounter was at about 9000 feet which seems to agree with many other posters.
I was coming down from Mt. Hooper via the Tombstone heading for the Double Meadow area to pick up the trail back to Florence Dam. I'd stopped to eyeball the steep slope ahead and plan a route through the dry brush on the south facing slope high above the San Joaquin River. A moment after I'd stopped, I heard a loud hissss coming from the ground near my feet. With my skin crawling and the hair on my neck sticking up, my muscles froze and tried to look down at my feet by just moving my eyes. At that moment another hissss came- louder than before. I flexed my knees and pushed off in a world record-breaking broad jump. I landed about 5 or 6 feet down hill from my previous stance and whorled around to see what had been at my feet. It was shockingly huge. I don't remember the dimensions, but it was far larger that nearly every other snake I'd ever seen... very fat with dark coloring that almost matched the ground. I watched as it moved slowly into a hole in the ground upon which I'd been standing. As it moved, it's rattle wagged slowly back and forth in the air- too slowly to make a sound. This was in July or August, so I don't think it was in a hibernation state; I got the impression from looking at it that it was just very old. "Sorry about standing on your house. Thanks for not biting me," I muttered under my breath. When it finally disappeared into the ground, I continued my journey. Getting back to my car at Florence Dam took much longer than I'd originally planned, since I was now checking and double checking every rock, branch and shadow that were within 4 or 5 feet of my path for snakes. Of course, now that I was checking for them, I didn't see a single one for the rest of the day.
I just posted a map with all rattlesnake observations for Sequoia Kings up to 2003. The data is derived from actual sightings reported by visitors (a few), rangers & NPS workers (the majority) and historical references from the archives (a few). I didn't do an analysis/labeling by elevation because, originally, the data was just projected in grids not necessarily related to where the original observation was from. This has since been corrected but I don't think it would give an accurate elevation for the sighting from all the accumulated error. I also just projected it onto the Sequoia Kings Brochure map, so obviously this is just a general idea of where rattlesnakes are.
As near as I can tell, the maximum elevation of sightings seem to be upper Woods Creek, Rae Lakes and Finger Peak area -- all around 10,500 feet or maybe a little more.
I might do this for Yosemite soon, though there's not as many recorded sightings from there.
Wow, those high ones are indeed really high. Upper Blue Canyon at10.5 . Like most people I walked around there never even considering the possibility of seeing one. On the other hand, I may be a tad more vigilant than before, but even when I do work at low elevations I tend to worry about it quite a bit more before I leave the road, but once off trail I concentrate on the task at hand. I think when one is worrying about one's footing (or on the geology underfoot) one's senses are in pretty good shape to ID a snake before stepping on it (I hope).
Good to have perspective from Giantbrookie. I know of only one rattlesnake bite with venom injected in Yosemite and Sequoia Kings in the last couple of decades (three more in the foothills < 2,000 feet). If I remember right, I think a majority of snake bitten people that present in an ER are drunk... .
A quiet night here in the rain so, at not extra charge, here's a snake map for Yosemite:
Five things I love about the High Sierra are that rattlesnakes, ticks, poison oak, no-see-ums and chiggars generally stay away. Now if the mosquitos would just follow suit...
My highest rattlesnake sightings have been Bubbs Creek trail at around 7,000 feet and the Sawmill Pass trail around 8000.
gdurkee wrote:Speaking of rattlesnakes, last summer one of the trail crew heard a rattle, looked up, and there was a rattlesnake 10 feet up a tree! Junction Meadow. Never heard anything like that before.
g.
I grew up out here in the coast Chapparral country and have seen more rattlesnakes than I care to think about, and twice I have seen one well off the ground up in the brush, once about 3- 4', the other time right at eye level while I was crashing thru the brush on an SAR mission. Both times I figured they were in a panic trying to get away from me, neither one rattled though.
The direction you are moving in is what matters, not the place you happen to be -Colin Fletcher
