Date: 2004-07-11
From: Peter's Mountain Shelter

To: Rausch Mountain Shelter
Miles today: 17.5
Weather: broken clouds

Well, today I DEFINITELY saw my first ever rattlesnake in the wild! Actually, I DEFINATELY saw one rattlesnake and probably saw two, but the second one was moving so fast through the underbrush away from me that I couldn¢t see its distinctive head or tail well enough to say, for sure, what is was. But when it flung itself off the corner of a large rock and flopped onto another one below, all I got to see clearly was 3¢ of white, wide-body underbelly. Then ¢plop¢ and it was gone. But it was big and it was heavy just like the Timber Rattlers that are very prevalent in the eastern Pennsylvania woods. The first, however, one was DEFINITELY a Timber Rattlesnake, as was the third one which I never saw at all, but nearly stepped on without knowing it. It was nestled under the far side of a downed tree that lay across the trail and, as is my habit when I can¢t see completely under a log because of its girth, I step on the log and plant my trekking poles on the far side which allows me to take a very long 4-5¢stride away from the log onto a clear and steady visible landing spot. A fellow hiker, ¢Chef,¢ was traveling along with me at the time and was no more than a minute behind me. He received a VERY different welcome from the snake beneath the log that I never saw or heard. I guess the snake hadn¢t liked being awakened from his nap by my size 14 boots thumping on his roof, because as ¢Chef¢ approached the log he began rattling away. In no uncertain terms he was making it clear that he was NOT in a good mood. Even when ¢Chef¢ threw some twigs at him, he would not move, so ultimately, ¢Chef¢ had to walk around the downed tree and then return to the trail further up the way. All the while I just kept on walking. Sometimes, ignorance IS bliss.But the first one was DEFINITELY a Timber Rattler. For the past several weeks I have been anticipating that I would eventually encounter a rattlesnake or perhaps a Copperhead and, when I did, I had planned to begin that day¢s journal entry by screaming in capital letters, ¢SNAKE! SNAKE!¢ This approach, I am sure, would have gotten your attention. But, my first experience of a rattlesnake in the wild just wasn¢t that kind of shrieking, panic-stricken event, so I shouldn't represent it that way to you. Here's what happened. When I DEFINITELY saw my first-ever rattlesnake in the wild¢¦Today was a sunny, warm day, perfect for hiking (and, if you are a rattlesnake, perfect for sunning). I was on the trail by 9 am and about 10:30 I arrived at a rocky section of the Trail called Shikellamy Rock that faces in an easterly direction affording it a lot of morning sunshine. As I clambered across the boulders, the Trail went through a narrow 30¢ area where an uplifted series of flattop boulders form a solid wall to the left, while to the right; everything fell away in a jumbled pile of very inhospitable rocks and boulders. There weren¢t a lot of good optional routes across or around this portion of the Shikellamy Rocks. As I entered the narrow passageway, I saw a note duct-taped to a rock that had been written several days earlier by Heidi, the regional ridge runner (whom I had met on two separate occasions back on July 5th while en route to Boiling Springs, but I didn¢t realize that she was the ridge runner for this part of the Trail.)The note said¢¢Rattlesnake ahead on left near rock with blaze on it.¢ Below her note was another one dated 7/10 (yesterday) that said, cryptically, ¢Still there.¢ I moved ahead slowly, quietly and with deliberate caution. As I got abeam the rock with the blaze on it I looked up from my feet and there, almost at eye-level was a snake, just as advertised. A rattlesnake stretched out and doubled back, lying there catching rays. Now, before I go any further, you must understand that ¢I HATE SNAKES.¢ Truly, they terrify me. But, even so, after a brief moment of shock (combined with a strong, DNA-level urge to propel myself straight up into the troposphere by a sheer force of willpower while simultaneously jettisoning everything in my lower alimentary canal!), I realized that I really wasn¢t in harm¢s way even though I was only about 4 feet from it. The experience felt very similar to the first time I saw a shark while snorkeling, or the first time I saw a bomb go off in combat. The sensation can probably best be described as a state of ¢considered and mixed terror and awe¢ as opposed to ¢downright uncontrolled panic.¢ Nevertheless, I must admit that the "flight/flight" instinct gets ALL systems immediately to a heightened level! (Question: since noone in their right mind even wants to think about having a "fight" with a snake, why is it called "flight/fight"? In this instance, the cerebellum is screaming, "Legs, do your thing!" which, in my book, is "flight/flight"!). I stood there and looked at the markings and the colors (a surprisingly mocha brown body fading to black at the tail with white rattles). And, of course, I looked at its width and tried to discern its length. (As my heart rate came down under its immediate peak of 500 beats per minute, I was able to revise my initial estimate of 30¢ down to something more realistic... like 30¢.) Its head was tucked in such a way that I couldn¢t see it from where I was standing and I really didn¢t think that it was a particularly good idea to do anything that might prompt it to show me the working end of this viper. I actually did have enough composure to take its picture before back tracking out of the rock pile to wait at the entrance for the young couple of Section Hikers from Redding, PA who were not too far behind me. They were traveling with a young Golden Retriever and I didn¢t want them to find themselves in a bad situation with the dog in tow, not knowing what was awaiting them. Once they arrived, I again moved up past the snake and on my merry way ¢ glad to have finally encountered my first venomous reptile and to have lived to tell about it.Around noon most of my body functions had returned to normal and I reached a spring and replenished my water before starting up the side of Stony Mountain (the mountain was most aptly named as the hour and a half climb to its flat-top proved!). There at the top I found a delightful grassy opening in the sunshine, and lay my sweaty clothes out to dry while I ate a couple of Spam and cheese burritos. I then took a nap on my sleeping pad in the grass.I changed back into my hiking clothes and was just heading out when I ran into ¢Chef¢ (whom I had met briefly yesterday afternoon when I stopped for water at the Clark¢s Ferry Shelter. At the time, he, Harry and ¢Sunshine¢ were commiserating over the damage they had done to themselves at the Doyle the night before¢¦ ahhh, youth!) ¢Chef¢ and I formed a loose confederation as we journeyed along our northeasterly course and, much to our great pleasure, found the remaining seven miles of the trip to Rausch Gap Shelter to be along an old Stage Coach road, which was flat and relatively free from rocks. Along the way we stopped at the ruins of an old mining town, Yellow Springs Village that was once home to 1,000 people and where today the only standing structure is a brand new mailbox nailed to a post in which a trail-log is placed. Some incredibly thoughtless people had left a big pile of trash in the center of this otherwise pristine setting which "Chef" and I found both unsettling and disheartening. Fortunately, ¢Chef¢ had a large trash bag in his pack and we picked up the debris and took it with us to dispose of when we next reach civilization.We arrived here at the shelter and I made myself a yummy dinner of macaroni and Spam and set up my stuff in the shelter which is quite modern-looking and built into the side of the mountain. The community area in front of the shelter has been hollowed out from the mountainside that is kept from reclaiming it by a 7¢ high retaining wall of stone. At one end of the wall is a metal, ¢V-shaped¢ trough into which perks a spring, just a few feet from the shelter! The water runs out the other end of the trough and down the side of the mountain. There is no picnic table here, but instead, a metal-covered circular ¢bar¢ has been built around the lone big tree in the center of the walled community area. It¢s quite an attractive shelter, but I must admit that it looks more like a place where they should be serving Margarita¢s in Midtown Manhattan than a shelter on the Appalachian Trail. Besides ¢Chef,¢ my shelter-mates tonight include ¢Ishmael¢, ¢Mountain Squid¢ and ¢Sunshine¢ all of whom I have met during the last few days. It¢s now 10 and they are all asleep, as I, too, will soon be¢¦ in just about two seconds. Nite nite!