Mt Whitney Zone Forums The Chat Room Talk about snakes!

This is the biggest rattlesnake I've seen. Was in the southern Sierra, at about 6K' elevation, in late April a couple of years ago. I estimate his body was a bit bigger than my forearm.

Thanks for the reminder and link about the WP campground - I've never stayed there - but will be come next May!

I hike in the Santa Monicas all the time and th eonly time I've seen a rattler was in leo CArillo campground - guess I'm blind or lucky :-)

Hi Barbara, When I lived in Sherman Oaks, I would take Dixie Canyon up to Mulholland. It's a great place, but I'm sure it has changed since I lived there (appx 12 years ago.) I would see deer and quail a lot. I always felt bad for the deer, since they seemed to be stuck between Bel-Aire and Sherman Oaks. I stepped right over a very large rattler between Dixie canyon and Sepulveda and every once in a while would see them more towards Studio City in the Tree People Park. Never had any problems with them though as they are usually pretty docile.

QS, that's just about the scariest rattler shot I've ever seen. Black and white ringed tail, so I'm assuming it's a western diamondback? If I saw one in that pose up close, I'd just crap my britches. I never saw the one that nailed me before he struck, so at least I went to the hospital with clean undies. Mom was proud.

That pose is a rattler ready to strike.Once they coil they mean business. They would prefer to run away as they are not aggresive by nature and much more defensive in general.I did have a baby rattler charge me which was very unusual in my experience.I saw what I thought was a large lizard slither under my trash can and I just had a "feeling" I should check it out and as I rolled the trash can out of the way he charged at my feet.As I backed up he kept coming at me.Usually they take that defensive coiled pose and strike only if you move towards them but never come at you and keep coming.

Mojave greens may charge you. They can be quite aggressive.

It could also be a Red Diamond Rattler... they have the same black/white banding on their tails and tend to have more of the reddish coloring then the Western Diamondback...

As for snakes above 6K or so.. the Sierra Garter snake to about 8k, the Southern Pacific Rattlesnake to about 11k, The Panamint Rattlesnake to about 8k... just to throw a couple names out there....

Hi SoCalGirl....You are absolutely correct! My wife told me it's a Red Diamond Rattlesnake.

She works in the field every day for the Riverside County MSHCP, under the authority of the DFG. After she told me about the really large rattlesnake, we went out to the same area to see if we could find it. We didn't see any rattlers, but we did run into a wild beehive in the rocks. That wasn't much fun. I worry a bit about her being in the field, but I'm more concerned about what kind of human contact she has out in hard to get to places, than I am about snakes, Mountain Lions or other creatures.

YAY! I'm a bit of an amatuer hobby herpatologist... I love the snakes!


This same worry is one of my biggest limiting factors when trying to get out there with my kiddos... I'd love to be able to do more camping.. but with no one to camp with it's not safe anymore to camp with just me and the kids... I can deal with snakes, mountain lions, bears (if necessary).. it's the two legged wild ones that 'cause me hesitation!

Hi Chris, Welcome to the WhitneyZone!

And back to subject of the Portal Campground . . .

Maybe we should all see how many times we can manipulate Steve into changing the title of this thread.

> And back to subject of the Portal Campground . . .

...or welcoming new members, or...

I'm just trying to keep Whitney and hiking-specific stuff in the General forum, and all this other fun stuff in the Chat Room.

Didja see the web cam this morning? I had to back off the zoom so more than just the corner of the "LP" hill was visible. And then I could switch to manual focus -- doggone camera won't autofocus properly inn low-light (probably due to the weather proof cover aka fabric softener container), and the computer-controlled manual focus does not work at higher zoom levels.

New members = good thing!

Yeah, I've watched it all morning. Wouldn't want to be hiking up there today. Or driving to the Portal or Horseshoe Meadows.

I want to welcome Chris also.She is family.Scary she knows so much about rattlers though.

Very unworried, nonchalant Copperhead, about 3 feet in length. Taken by my wife yesterday at Misty Mountain near Cloudland Canyon in northwest Georgia. She was escorting a group of 10 year-old Girl Scouts on a hike when she spotted it.

The really scary thing is one of the other chaperones told everyone not to worry, the snake wasn't poisonous. Fortunately my wife knows her local pit vipers and kept the kids, including our daughter, well back.

BD.. that snake has some of the most beautiful markings I've ever seen. Of course... as I was more interested in the markings then paying attention to the subtle diamonding shape of his head (apparent by the shadowing behind his jaw) I'd have been bit and dead before I realized he was poisonous!

A hospital stay certainly Chris, but dead is doubtful unless untreated. Lotta bites by this snake in the Southeast, due mostly to it's excellent camouflage coloring, but few deaths. The Eastern Diamondback rattler and Cottonmouth are the ones we get all twitchy about.

A lot of snakes, especially venomous ones, can vary greatly in coloration, but the Copperhead is incredibly consistent, especially with the bands and markings. It's related to the Cottonmouth, but will actually vibrate it's (non-rattling) tail when threatened. Identity crisis I suppose.

My wife was flabbergasted that the other chaperone would make an uninformed assumption that the snake was harmless. If you were herding a group of a dozen 10 year-old Girl Scouts through the forest and stumbled on a snake you couldn't identify, wouldn't you make the opposite assumption for safety's sake? And this on top of a mandatory snake-ID session at the very beginning of the weekend camp. My wife is originally from Minnesota, where venomous snakes are almost non-existant, but she quickly learned her Georgia vipers and - as you pointed out - focuses on the shape of the head more than anything else. The non-venomous Brown Watersnake can look a lot like a Copperhead or Cottonmouth in every particular - even the thicker middle body - but the triangular pit viper head is always the "stay away" giveaway.

...wouldn't you make the opposite assumption for safety's sake?

Darn right!!!

I always assume a snake is poisonus untill I know better. Usually I don't hang around to identify.
Those markings look like alternating wine glasses complete with stem and base.

BD... not having to deal to much (read "at all") with the copperhead variety of pits... I don't know to horrible much about them. However... I know a good rattlesnake bite can make you very sore for a very long time. One of our local radio personalities was bit last summer while hiking and she was in recovery for about 6 weeks before she could come back to work.

Everytime I take my Boy or Girl Scouts (or family, or friends) out we have a mandatory "Ms. Chris is paranoid" lecture where we talk about all the creepy crawlies (vegetable AND animal) that we're likely to encounter. I stress (or try to.. very hard to get through to a group of teenage boys sometimes)... anyways.. I stress the importance of looking where you're stepping and where you're putting your hands/feet/toes/nose/fingers before you put them there.

Thankfully most of the creepy crawlies we have to worry about out here in the American Southwest have those nifty little buzzers attached to their bottom ends to warn us. However... alot of people don't know what they actually sound like and start wondering where the heck that running water faucet is. One critter we've been seeing alot lately though are scorpions... not nice!

I have a terrific habit of trying to identify anything I run into on the trail.. later... from the pictures that I took with the zoom function on my camera. LOL. One of my biggest worries is getting one of my boys or girls out there in the backcountry (or even in the frontcountry) and getting one of them snake bit. The closest I've come though is last year when hiking on a cold (thankfully) morning BoyChild plopped down on a nice trailside rock... I think I posted at one time the pictures of the beautiful Southwestern Rattler that was coiled underneath it....