Kerby Peak Hike

    A few days ago Mike and I were hiking up Kerby Peak, a good hard climb straight up a peak to the spectacular 360-degree view of valleys and mountains at the top. We hiked through some beautiful old-growth and a sunlit stand of white-shining bear grass and then into a section about half a mile from the top where the trail, on the steep hillside, goes through thick manzanita bushes interspersed with occasional rocks. Suddenly Mike, hiking behind me, let out a yell. I turned around, thinking he might have fallen, but he was still standing. Following his gaze, I saw, six inches at the edge of the trail I had just walked, a big, fat, mottle-patterned snake, coiled, flicking his tongue. 

    The pattern looked like a rattlesnake’s, but the color was maybe too green, we thought. We couldn’t see any rattles, but the tail was hidden under the coiled body. I was trying to get a closer look at the head, which did look pretty arrow-shaped but blended into the body so that it was hard to get a good look at it, when the head lifted – definitely arrow-shaped – and the rattles showed, rustling with that unmistakable sound. Rattlesnake.
    After a horrified moment of realizing how close I had come to treading on a rattlesnake, I laughed and said, well, I was on this side of him, but what was Mike going to do? He opted for the downhill detour, so down he crashed through the bushes and dead manzanita limbs then clambered up to meet me on the trail beyond striking distance. As we watched, the snake uncoiled – certainly the biggest rattlesnake I’ve ever seen (but isn’t the one in front of you always the biggest one you've ever seen?) – and, rattling gently, slid uphill under a rock, where it turned to look at us.

    Mike set a row of rocks across the trail so that on the return we would know where to be alert.
    As I continued up the mountain I kept my eyes on the ground, expecting rattlers around every bend, but we achieved the peak without further mishap. We marveled at its view, argued good-humoredly about which mountain was which, ate lunch, and descended.
    Even before I saw the line of rocks across the trail, I recognized the rattlesnake spot. I stopped and looked, and there was that same big fat rattlesnake coiled in the sun in the exact same spot he had been before. Mike went first, downhill through the manzanita, as I kept my eye on the snake. I followed him while he watched the snake for me (reminding me of swimming in the North Sea in Sweden, when my friend sat on the rocks above the sea watching for jellyfish as I swam). Safely on the other side of the snake, we were looking at it again, marveling again at its size and our safety, when we saw a family of five coming up the trail towards us.
    “It’s your lucky day,” Mike said to them as they walked up to us, “that we’re here to warn you about the rattlesnake on the trail ahead.” They craned their necks to see the snake and verify the truth of our tale. As we headed down the trail, they were beginning to make their way, one by one, through the downhill thicket of manzanita, keeping an eye on the snake for each other.