“Jason! Behind You, in the Water–Rattlesnake!”
Published January 10, 2008 by Jason
Jason Quinten Kincade’s Gold Fever Diary, Page 9—Outline:
My wife, Step-son, and Henry, our German Shepherd, hike into a steep, remote canyon to set up a camp for a weeks stay. My 11 year-old Step-son catches bait and goes fishing everyday. My wife reads, sunbaths and otherwise does her thing. I put on a wetsuit and snipe in the creek for gold, and that’s where I have an unusual encounter with a Rattlesnake!
Back in the ‘80s, when I was married and a had cabin in town, I was regularly away from home on gold sniping trips lasting a week or two.
One summer my wife and step-son Joe, aged 11, decided to pack in with me to a remote section of one of my favorite Sierra Nevada sniping creeks—just to get away, have a little fun, and watch ‘the old man at work.’
With bulging packs strapped to our backs and Henry our German Shepherd bounding ahead, we descended into the canyon on a long, steep and winding trail.
It was mid-summer, the heat was intense, and by the time we arrived at the stream, the three of us had a layer of trail dust caked over our sweaty hands and faces.
While Henry splashed around in the creek we, dropped our packs at the waters edge, rinsed our faces and had a long cool drink.
A word of caution—although I drank, and without hesitation, from many dozens of creeks and rivers over the years, I do not recommend it. There are risks. Giardia, for instance, is a tiny parasite that is common in some Sierra streams and when ingested it can lodge in the intestinal track where it can soon make itself known in very unpleasant ways. I have not escaped its wrath!
After a brief rest, we began our upstream hike to our campsite and almost immediately were confronted by a sheer faced 90-foot waterfall. We carefully climbed a narrow path that the old-timers had cut into the canyon’s south wall in order to surmount the enchanting but annoying barrier.
In one spot a knob of bedrock protruded into our path at waist height, about 60 feet above the creek. The trail was only a couple of foot wide at that point, and it required some careful negotiating and a bit of confidence to pass safely around the bulge. A fall could have been disastrous. Henry with “4 wheel drive” and being so low centered had no problem at all. I had been over the trail many times, but for Rita and Joe it was a first. They proceeded without hesitation; I was relived and proud of the way they handled it.
Once over the falls the canyon widened and we continued upstream; there was no defined trail, and we made our way through brush and over boulders for 30 or 40 minutes, first following one side of the channel then crossing to the other and back again depending on the terrain.
We setup a camp on a sandy flat, 10 feet above creek level, at a spot that I had scouted the last time I had sniped the canyon.
That night under a clear, twinkling sky, we snuggled up to our campfire, sang and toasted marshmallows. Henri, short for Henrietta, made sure we didn’t leave her out, by whining, nudging, and cajoling until she got her fair share.
Over the week of our stay, Rita sunbathed, read, hiked, and paned for gold; Joe paned a little too, but he spent most of his time fishing. He used hellgrammites from the creek for bait and caught some respectable sized German Browns that Rita cooked for us over the campfire. I spent my time in the water sniping for gold. (learn more about sniping)
One day, in my wetsuit, I was working in the creek cleaning out a crevice below a pool. I was unaware that Joe had come up creek fishing and was standing on the bank just above me.
“Jason!” he yelled. Startled, I looked up to see him standing there with his fishing pole and pointing.
“Behind you in the water—rattlesnake!”
I thought he was joking or mistaken as I had never in all my years of sniping seen a Rattlesnake in the water—yes, lots of Water Snakes, but no Rattlers.
I turned around to see a Rattlesnake in the water all right—floating—not two feet away. It had washed into the eddy were I had been working with my head underwater. It wasn’t moving and there was most of a birds body sticking out of it’s mouth.
Cautiously, I reached out and touched the snake—no reaction. Emboldened, I drew it closer for inspection. It was dead, but it hadn’t been dead for long. Both it and the bird looked fresh, as if they had just died; they were not putrid, but were limber and showed no sign of decomposition.
While still in the water, I grabbed a hold of the snake and tugged on the black feathered bird. I was surprised at how much force it required to extract it, and even more surprised to see that the bird’s bill was curved and at least a couple inches long. What species? I do not know.
“Well, it looks like he bit off more than he could chew!” Joe said with a chuckle.
“Yeah,” I said, “that ought to learn him!”
And I think Joe had it about right. The snake had bit off more than it could “swallow. ” It must have envenomated the bird when it was at the waters edge where it had probably come to feed.
After striking, the snake must have waited for the bird to stop struggling and then tried to swallow it head first (normal procedure) only to get its long sharp bill caught in its throat. The snake must have fallen into the water and drowned while struggling to swallow or eject the bird.
(As this incident illustrates—even while bustling about our common everyday activities (as both the bird and the snake were) preoccupied and mindless of impending danger—tragedy can swiftly take us.)
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