Mat Honan found one of Yosemite’s more nefarious inhabitants while hiking in the park, a rattlesnake. I haven’t actually heard of anyone being bitten in the Park but man, coming across a rattler on the trail puts your adrenaline through the roof even if you don’t have a confrontation.
Hopefully Matt didn’t shoot this video with an iPhone. The snake didn’t look too far away.
By the way, if you think you’re safe from rattlers when you’re climbing think again. I’ve heard of people pulling up to a ledge on El Cap to find a rattler coiled up trying to get warm in the sun. Nothing like staring a venomous snake eye to eye.
Comments
6 responses to “Rattler! (video)”
Both times I have hiked the Half Dome trail, someone in my group has seen a rattlesnake, and both times the snakes were right on the trail.
I couldn’t get a good look on the video, but I suspect this may, in fact be a harmless gopher snake despite the poster’s describing the rattle sound.
Gopher/bull snakes mimic the rattlesnake in several ways that often leads to a case of mistaken identity.
I have a number of gopher snakes and rattlesnakes on my Mariposa property and this one (on the small video screen) is more emblematic of the gopher snake.
P.S. – On October 10th while hiking down from the Half Dome summit we came across two rattlesnakes near Little Yosemite Valley that were unmistakable in head size and shape, pattern and coloration – quite different from this video specimen.
I agree with Chuck the skin pattern looks more like a Gopher snake. It is hard to see the head to make a definitive identification. One of the advantages of hiking this time of the year is that it is cold enough that the snakes should hibernate in most of the park. One of the disadvantages is that it can get really cold in the high country especially as the sun goes down.
I stand corrected from my earlier post. Upon closer inspection in full screen mode it appears that this most likely a young Western Diamondback.
Ok, Ok – Patricia’s comment made me doubt my last assertion so I played the video at full screen again on a larger monitor and tried to pause each time a view of the head could be had.
Finally a good frame came into view and depicts the head as more triangular with the eyesockets raised out of the skull. Also, a better view of the tail section revealed noticable colored “rings” – leading me to say definitely a young rattler.