High altitude snakes
Oldwayne
Lone Pine. A friendly 3 foot long garter snake crawled all around us and
under our day packs. Since the lake is at 10,000, I was surprised to find
a snake at that altitude. Has anyone else had high altitude snake
encounters?
--wayne
<Disclaimer not required>
Norman J. MacLeod
Oh, yes indeedy! If you are looking for snakes, and know where to look, you
can find them at and above 10,000' (330 metres) without too much difficulty.
However, the wildenst encounter I have yet had was with a young copperhead
not too far from the top of Mount Mansfield, Vermont - shortly after the snow
had more or less melted in May. Not only was this quite a ways north of this
particular snake's normal range, but there were still spots of snow in the
shadier areas nearby.
I have seen snakes higher than 10K' up in the Rockies from New Mexico up
through Utah and Colorado, as well. They are there, but snakes tend to be
rather shy critters who would by and large prefer to head the other way as
long as you give them a bit of advance warning.
Norman
William Johnson
>Last summer my wife and I were stopped for lunch at First Lake, west of
>Lone Pine. A friendly 3 foot long garter snake crawled all around us and
>under our day packs. Since the lake is at 10,000, I was surprised to find
>a snake at that altitude. Has anyone else had high altitude snake
>encounters?
Remarkably few responses to this so far ... My wife encountered a timber
rattlesnake at the top of the local ski area, which is right at 10,000'.
(No, it wasn't skiing; our snow doesn't last into June...) Conventional
wisdom is that snake encounters decrease in frequency above 6,000' or so,
and that encounters above 9,000' are *very* rare. However, she grew up in the
mountains of northern New Mexico and claims that most of the rattlers she's
seen have been around the 7500' level, which is where the pinon/juniper forest
gives way to ponderosa pines, presumably representing some little habitat
niche. I've never seen a rattler above 7000' myself, although I've run into
plenty between 5000' and 7000'.
--
Bill Johnson | "The only way to deal with bureaucrats
Los Alamos National Laboratory | is with stealth and sudden violence."
Los Alamos, New Mexico USA | (Attributed to UN Secretary-General
(bjoh...@godiva.lanl.gov) | Boutros-Ghali, with thanks to Joe Chew)
Michael K. Tamada
Oldwayne <oldw...@aol.com> wrote:
>Last summer my wife and I were stopped for lunch at First Lake, west of
>Lone Pine. A friendly 3 foot long garter snake crawled all around us and
>under our day packs. Since the lake is at 10,000, I was surprised to find
>a snake at that altitude. Has anyone else had high altitude snake
>encounters?
We saw a snake last summer while hiking down Mt. Baldy; altitude was
probably between 9,000 and 10,000 feet at the time. Well above
treeline.
--Mike Tamada
Occidental College
tam...@oxy.edu
John Wilkinson
|> In article <3ipc1n$i...@newsbf02.news.aol.com> oldw...@aol.com (Oldwayne) writes:
|> >Last summer my wife and I were stopped for lunch at First Lake, west of
|> >Lone Pine. A friendly 3 foot long garter snake crawled all around us and
|> >under our day packs. Since the lake is at 10,000, I was surprised to find
|> >a snake at that altitude. Has anyone else had high altitude snake
|> >encounters?
|>
I saw a very large rattlesnake at about 9000 feet on the Copper Creek trail in
Kings Canyon.
Chris Schmandt
>Remarkably few responses to this so far ...
OK, I'm tempted.
>Conventional
>wisdom is that snake encounters decrease in frequency above 6,000' or so,
>and that encounters above 9,000' are *very* rare. However, she grew up in the
>mountains of northern New Mexico and claims that most of the rattlers she's
>seen have been around the 7500' level.
I encountered one of the small rattlers about 50 feet below the summit of
Animas Peak in extreme SW NM in mid summer. I don't have the topo handy
but I believe the peak is 8500 feet or so. Did not have time for a good
ID but I think it may have been a relatively rare mountain variety (a lot
of unusal wildlife there). We were hustling to get up and off the peak
to beat an approaching thunder storm. I was quite surprised when
this short scree slope buzzed me.
chris
Timothy Hague
: >Last summer my wife and I were stopped for lunch at First Lake, west of
: >Lone Pine. A friendly 3 foot long garter snake crawled all around us and
: >under our day packs. Since the lake is at 10,000, I was surprised to find
: >a snake at that altitude. Has anyone else had high altitude snake
: >encounters?
I've seen Berg Adders (berg=mountain in afrikaans) in the Drakensberg
mountains in South Africa at over 3000 metres. An interesting thing about
this snake is that although it's poisonous, no bites have ever been fatal,
on humans at least. In some very well documented cases of bites, people lose
vision, motor control, suffer severe headaches etc, but have fully recovered
within about 2 months. Also, as far as I know, they don't live below 2500m.
3000m=approx 10 000ft
John E. Foster
John E. Foster
Colorado which is well over 7000 feet. A friend ran into another deer
hunting near Guffey Colorado which is also over 7000 feet. I have found
garter snakes to be quite common in the South Park region of Colorado which
is over 9000 feet.
jefo...@pipeline.com
David Babinski
There are rattlesnakes on the Air Force Academy at about 7250 ft.
Steve Jaynes
consider 7500 ft., high altitude. I also have seen several rattlers in
Poudre Canyon and in various foot hills of Front Range (similar to USAF
Academy. Also in high messa country on West Slope. Lived in Wyoming for a
bit. Many R.Snakes there including one whick bit my unsuspecting friend.
we were moving a pile of fence posts and he thoguth at first he had been
hit by a post end. That's when the snake bit him the second time. I
usually leave critters to their own, but the rattles from that one are in
my jewelry box. That incident happened near Dubois Wyoming, which I seem
to remember near 8000 ft. BTY, my friend recovered nicely, but not before
getting really sick. We used stnd snake bite remedy, less cutting X
shaped marks in wound. I always carry a Cutter snake bite kit when out
and about. We were 85 miles from hospital (Riverton), the first 20 on
dirt, and the 1 1/2 hr ride was really miserable for him. Hospital there,
though small, was all too familiar with proceedures.
I personally had close call of my own near Horse Tooth Reservoir when I
stepped on a small Prairie Rattler while fishing. I heard about a 1/10
of a second of buzzing followed by a squishing sound. He had opened his
mouth to strike the bottom of my boot, and I stepped down on him with the
full force of walking, before I could react. Wouldn't have hurt him if
he'd given me better warning. My boots would have protected me, so I was
really sorry he met his end so unfortunately.
Steve Jaynes
David Babinski
(boo...@usa.net) wrote:
: >Some years back I encountered a prairie rattlesnake in Poudre Canyon in
--
Best regards,
Steve Jaynes
jay...@netcom.com
Jim Pond
That's nothing. I saw a copperhead flying an SR-71 over the North
Atlantic back in the '60s.
+---------------------------------------------------+
|
Bill Spikes
: That's nothing. I saw a copperhead flying an SR-71 over the North
: Atlantic back in the '60s.
I've heard they even do HALO jumps!
Bill
irenegro...@gmail.com
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dkgg...@gmail.com
hlil...@juno.com
> I learned a lesson, “ there’s an exception to every rule.”
nonsensical claim that there is an exception to every rule, often stated in even
sillier wording as the exception proves the rule. The exception proves the rule
*wrong*! In fact, many scientific advances have followed when someone found a
case that did not follow the then accepted rule. Investigating why often leads to
improved understanding, ie. to a better rule.
jameshi...@gmail.com
Lender's Email: sloans...@gmail.com
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