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Cache In The Desert


timk54

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My sons and I went to the desert to work our gold claim today and on the way deciced to collect a couple caches. the first one was easy. The next one was a little more exciting. We parked on the dirt trail not far from the cache and walked through the brush toward the cache. I was watching the GPSr when I heard my son say "Hey, there's a rattlesnake". We had just passed by a three foot long Mojave Green Rattlesnake sunning itself at the edge of a brushy area a couple feet from where we had just walked. Seems early in the season to see a snake but there he was. We let him be and he didn't bothere us. We found the cache stached in another nearby bush. Be Careful.

Timk54

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We let him be and he didn't bothere us.

135406248.jpg

 

Good Job!

Many people would have needlessly killed it.

Thanks for being a good steward of our wildlife, even though it might be somewhat of a threat to us at times.

:(

 

Never would kill a rattlesnake but I still give them a lot of respect

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Too many people kill even harmless snakes- just because they are snakes. It makes me sick. The dean at one of the junior high camp sessions where I worked announced over the camp PA "if anyone sees a snake, kill it". This announcement came just as I was talking to a kid about his love for the environment and his dream of becoming a conservation officer. He was pretty disappointed with the announcement as was I.

 

I confronted the dean about it but he refused to retract his announcement.

 

Later that session, a large black snake "invaded" the chapel during a Bible study in a rain storm. I was the camp "hero" by catching it and releasing it at the creek. I guess it just wasn't its day to get out of the rain. :(

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qickly becoming political, snakes reporduce, cows and chickens reproduce, PITA (people eating tasty animals). I have hunted snakes, as long as you only kill a few, you must eat those few. One thing that sickens me is people go to hunt, kill animals, and let them rot in the field, or just suffer. If you kill it eat it.

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Well, any number of dangerous critters can be found throughout a number of areas, so you advice is good for any cache, not just desert caches.

 

We've encountered rattlers in the Black Hills in October. If you think your snake photo was scary, you should check out this nice snake a visitor snapped on the way to one of my caches.

 

At least your desert caches only have natural hazards, unlike some desert caches in other places. :(

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I'm not afraid of snakes. Heck, I'll even do my impersonation of Steve Irwin with one if it's non-venomous and then release it away from the trail so it doesn't get needlessly killed[1] . However (comma), let one startle me and whatever I have in hand/available are going to be pressed into immediate service [2].

 

Again, I don't condone the needless killing of anyhing in the wild [3] but scare me real good and all bets are off, I don't care how many legs it has (or doesn't have)

 

 

 

 

[1] snakes are real high on the "It needed killin'" list in rural Alabama

[2] see [1]

[3] despite it's appearance, my apartment isn't "the wild"

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Never would kill a rattlesnake but I still give them a lot of respect

 

Especially the Mojave Green. That venom is considered to be deadly. As of about 10 years ago the antidote was only available at the military bases but more recently a cacher who found our Mojave Road Mail Box cache said it was avaliable at more locations now.

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My wife and I are coming to Nevada for our son's wedding in less than two weeks. Is there anything we need to be concerned with other than snakes while were hiking in Red Rock Canyon and Valley of Fire?

 

<...comment deleted by moderator...>

Edited by Quiggle
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My wife and I are coming to Nevada for our son's wedding in less than two weeks. Is there anything we need to be concerned with other than snakes while were hiking in Red Rock Canyon and Valley of Fire?

 

<...comment deleted by moderator...>

 

My wife is one quarter Chippewa. That wasn't funny in the least.

Edited by Quiggle
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My wife and I are coming to Nevada for our son's wedding in less than two weeks. Is there anything we need to be concerned with other than snakes while were hiking in Red Rock Canyon and Valley of Fire?

 

<...comment deleted by moderator...>

 

My wife is one quarter Chippewa. That wasn't funny in the least.

I'm a whole dollar American!

Edited by Quiggle
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Too many people kill even harmless snakes- just because they are snakes. It makes me sick. The dean at one of the junior high camp sessions where I worked announced over the camp PA "if anyone sees a snake, kill it". This announcement came just as I was talking to a kid about his love for the environment and his dream of becoming a conservation officer. He was pretty disappointed with the announcement as was I.

 

I confronted the dean about it but he refused to retract his announcement.

 

Later that session, a large black snake "invaded" the chapel during a Bible study in a rain storm. I was the camp "hero" by catching it and releasing it at the creek. I guess it just wasn't its day to get out of the rain. :unsure:

 

Actually, killing snakes is increasingly becoming illegal in many states and in many state, city, county and national parks and wilderness areas, so you likely had the law on your side when you were dealing with the dean and his idiotic statement. If there is anything such as reincarnation, it woud be much fun if he were to reincarnate as a snake in his next lifetime.

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Too many people kill even harmless snakes- just because they are snakes. It makes me sick. The dean at one of the junior high camp sessions where I worked announced over the camp PA "if anyone sees a snake, kill it". This announcement came just as I was talking to a kid about his love for the environment and his dream of becoming a conservation officer. He was pretty disappointed with the announcement as was I.

 

I confronted the dean about it but he refused to retract his announcement.

 

Later that session, a large black snake "invaded" the chapel during a Bible study in a rain storm. I was the camp "hero" by catching it and releasing it at the creek. I guess it just wasn't its day to get out of the rain. :unsure:

 

Actually, killing snakes is increasingly becoming illegal in many states and in many state, city, county and national parks and wilderness areas, so you likely had the law on your side when you were dealing with the dean and his idiotic statement. If there is anything such as reincarnation, it woud be much fun if he were to reincarnate as a snake in his next lifetime.

 

What a strange twist to such a simple post. I just love it.

TimK

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Too many people kill even harmless snakes- just because they are snakes. It makes me sick. The dean at one of the junior high camp sessions where I worked announced over the camp PA "if anyone sees a snake, kill it". This announcement came just as I was talking to a kid about his love for the environment and his dream of becoming a conservation officer. He was pretty disappointed with the announcement as was I.

 

I confronted the dean about it but he refused to retract his announcement.

 

Later that session, a large black snake "invaded" the chapel during a Bible study in a rain storm. I was the camp "hero" by catching it and releasing it at the creek. I guess it just wasn't its day to get out of the rain. ;)

 

So, he instructed junior high school aged students to approach potentially deadly snakes? Oh if it had been my kid there and I had heard about that, heads would be rolling. Yes, I am "one of those mothers."

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Yes, and while we're up on our high horse about preservation of nature, let's not forget to respect our other fellow earthlings, like sharks and centipedes, HIV and polio, malaria and dengue fever (not to mention mosquitos, gnats and tsetse flies)... they all deserve our respect, too. As long as they don't bother me, I won't bother them...

Edited by edchen
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My sons and I went to the desert to work our gold claim today and on the way deciced to collect a couple caches. the first one was easy. The next one was a little more exciting. We parked on the dirt trail not far from the cache and walked through the brush toward the cache. I was watching the GPSr when I heard my son say "Hey, there's a rattlesnake". We had just passed by a three foot long Mojave Green Rattlesnake sunning itself at the edge of a brushy area a couple feet from where we had just walked. Seems early in the season to see a snake but there he was. We let him be and he didn't bothere us. We found the cache stached in another nearby bush. Be Careful.

Timk54

135406248.jpg

I just love the following responses, good job ;)

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I live in out the desert and the area of the Mojave Green. They are nothing to fool with. Their venom is the worse in the USA by far. :)

 

I have no problems with non-venomus snakes even the Red Racer that chased my wife. :)

 

Whether or not a venomus snake lives depends on where we meet. Near my house, sorry but the venomous snake dies. Out in the country we avoid each other.

 

If you are bit, kill the snake and take it with you as most Doctors want to see it in order to treat you with the right anti-venom.

 

The best way to protect your dog is to snake train it. My dog is snake trained and on at least 3 times has prevented me or my wife from approching a snake.

 

All of my desert caches have a warning to not put your hands or feet anywhere you have not checked out first.

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I live in out the desert and the area of the Mojave Green. They are nothing to fool with. Their venom is the worse in the USA by far...

 

...If you are bit, kill the snake and take it with you as most Doctors want to see it in order to treat you with the right anti-venom.

 

Hey, we've been to captnemo caches in the Mojave. They are fun!

 

Just like the capt says: We were told by park rangers and by a documentary that it is very important for them to know what species of rattle snake bit you (and that it truly was a rattle snake). This could be a tricky process though because you don't want to be bitten twice or worse, have two people bitten. Some people have even brought live rattlers to the doctor in cardboard boxes hoping they can be identified and then returned to the wild.

 

We did find a huge one once at a geocache site and were glad it was only 7 am on a cool morning and the snake hadn't warmed up enough to even rattle at us. We were darned close to it. Roadcow was just about to step off a boulder, landing within inches of it when he spotted it. Two of us had walked nearly within stricking distance without noticing it. And the cache was hidden under one of the boulders!

 

Fortunately rattlesnakes are seldom seen.

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I agree with Olbluesguy and Unicyclist. There are some circumstance in which it's OK to kill wild creatures, but not many.

 

I'm appalled at how many people kill snakes and sharks for no other reason than the fact that some snake and shark species are dangerous to mankind.

 

I'm not familiar with that species of rattlesnake, but my guess is that if you don't mess with it, it won't come after you. Most snakes just want to be left in peace.

 

At one cache location in Scotland I disturbed an adder (the species mentioned in McKryton's post). It was a lot more afraid of me than I was of it and it simply moved away to sun itself somewhere else.

 

The root post is a timely reminder for us in the Northern hemisphere that we are coming into the season when we must be extra vigilant in desert and heath environments when poking around under scrub and near hideyholes.

 

Of course, my "bunny-hugger" attitude to wildlife does not extend to ticks! I kill them at every opportunity.

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3 times while hiking/caching I have encountered Rattlers. Twice they were sunning themselves across the path. I threw small rocks at it, kicked dirt at it etc... just to get them to move on. I wasn't trying to injure or kill it...just bother it to move along.

 

So I said so in a post. You should have seen the uproar I got. I might as well have killed them. I bet I would have got less static.

 

I too wouldn't kill a Rattler without necessity.

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Just think of the food chain here, killing snakes whos diet is mainly rodents and insects. Those are the 2 things we dont want overpopulation of. Those are the 2 reasons we have exterminators. Spiders too, depending on size, mainly eat insects and rodents. Yes, to many, they're creepy. What happens when you approach them? They try to get away because you're bigger, therefore, a threat. Some have defense when you don't hear their warning, we just have to watch more while we're using their environment. If you have spiders in your house, I'll bet you dont have roaches. If you have snakes in your garden, I'll bet you dont have rodents.

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Very impressive, in Scotland the best we can do is this

 

http://img.Groundspeak.com/cache/log/32789...0ad8aaae422.jpg

 

Not very poisonous, about once every 10 years or so, a kid or old person dies after being bitten, but usually

it just spolis your week.

 

[edited for bad link]

 

The best you can do in Scotland? What about the Loch Ness Monster? ;)

 

or even more scarey, a drunk glaswegian!!! ( think rab c, nesbit)

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I live in out the desert and the area of the Mojave Green. They are nothing to fool with. Their venom is the worse in the USA by far. ;)

 

I have no problems with non-venomus snakes even the Red Racer that chased my wife. :(

 

Whether or not a venomus snake lives depends on where we meet. Near my house, sorry but the venomous snake dies. Out in the country we avoid each other.

 

If you are bit, kill the snake and take it with you as most Doctors want to see it in order to treat you with the right anti-venom.

 

The best way to protect your dog is to snake train it. My dog is snake trained and on at least 3 times has prevented me or my wife from approching a snake.

 

All of my desert caches have a warning to not put your hands or feet anywhere you have not checked out first.

 

How do you go about snake training a dog? I am about to move to Texas, and was thinking about getting a dog, but being a Yankee I have never heard of this. Matter of fact, can you snake-train Yankees?

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I live in out the desert and the area of the Mojave Green. They are nothing to fool with. Their venom is the worse in the USA by far. ;)

 

I have no problems with non-venomus snakes even the Red Racer that chased my wife. :(

 

Whether or not a venomus snake lives depends on where we meet. Near my house, sorry but the venomous snake dies. Out in the country we avoid each other.

 

If you are bit, kill the snake and take it with you as most Doctors want to see it in order to treat you with the right anti-venom.

 

The best way to protect your dog is to snake train it. My dog is snake trained and on at least 3 times has prevented me or my wife from approching a snake.

 

All of my desert caches have a warning to not put your hands or feet anywhere you have not checked out first.

 

How do you go about snake training a dog? I am about to move to Texas, and was thinking about getting a dog, but being a Yankee I have never heard of this. Matter of fact, can you snake-train Yankees?

Was woundering the same thing so I did a search on the net and came up with this.Train your hunting dogs to avoid snakes.

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DON'T STEP ON THE SNAKE!

 

I was happily out caching in Arizona on our way home from Mesquite and we stopped at the "Heart Break Hotel" cache (GCRYRA) and I almost stepped right on a sidewinder. :lol:

I hate snakes to begin with, terrified of them really (sorry guys but it comes from a very traumatic childhood experience). I had wandered to with-in about a foot and a half of the little critter. I was watching the gpsr and didn't see it until I was way to close for comfort. I froze and screamed. Hubby came to my rescue and helped me find the cache from there. It was cold out and snakes in our area won't be out for at least another month so it was quite a shock for me to see the little guy. My husband loves snakes and was thrilled to see it but it put a bit of a dampener on the rest of the day for me. It was only when we reached Cedar City that I realized that I should've had him at least take a picture of it. :huh: Oh well, maybe next time.

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DON'T STEP ON THE SNAKE!

 

I was happily out caching in Arizona on our way home from Mesquite and we stopped at the "Heart Break Hotel" cache (GCRYRA) and I almost stepped right on a sidewinder. :unsure:

I hate snakes to begin with, terrified of them really (sorry guys but it comes from a very traumatic childhood experience). I had wandered to with-in about a foot and a half of the little critter. I was watching the gpsr and didn't see it until I was way to close for comfort. I froze and screamed. Hubby came to my rescue and helped me find the cache from there. It was cold out and snakes in our area won't be out for at least another month so it was quite a shock for me to see the little guy. My husband loves snakes and was thrilled to see it but it put a bit of a dampener on the rest of the day for me. It was only when we reached Cedar City that I realized that I should've had him at least take a picture of it. :( Oh well, maybe next time.

 

Don't feel so bad. I too an deathly afraid of snakes. That's why I seldom bushwhack to a cache. I'd rather confront Uzi toting terrorists in a dark alley armed with only my duty weapon that see a snake 20 feet away.

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Don't feel so bad. I too an deathly afraid of snakes. That's why I seldom bushwhack to a cache. I'd rather confront Uzi toting terrorists in a dark alley armed with only my duty weapon that see a snake 20 feet away.

 

That's odd, seeing as how your chance of dying from the terrorists would be very close to 100%, while your chance of dying from the snake 20 feet away would be 0%.

 

Snakes don't want a piece of you any more than you want a piece of them, leave 'em be and everyone will be happy. Here's one we found under a cache once... he was just a baby but he was fiesty. :D

 

6eb419d9-f55b-4c78-92c0-83b1d6f7f5c7.jpg

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Snakes don't want a piece of you any more than you want a piece of them, leave 'em be and everyone will be happy.

 

I don’t know about that. :D That was my bad childhood experience with a snake. It was about a 6 foot long non-poisonous blow snake (commonly referred to as the bull snake) but to a 4 year old with a new puppy it looked like a very big horrible monster coming to eat me and it was coming for me and my puppy. :D Slithered right out of a pile of rubble toward me, scared me almost to death (I'm still here today so it was only almost :) ). It is one of the very few memories I have from that age but it was so terrifying to me at the moment that it has vividly stuck with me my whole life. Thus, I am still afraid of snakes.

 

A little trick for those of you on the trail. Poisonous snakes have verticle pupils, like little slits. Nonpoisonous snakes have round pupils.

 

Too scared to get that close!! :D

Edited by Willden Wild-Bunch
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I grew up around snakes and lived near hills with the Western Diamondback Rattlesnake. I encountered these many times throughout my childhood as well as adult life.

 

Another fun safety fact... snakes can *typically* strike only 1/2 of their total length. Of course, just like some people who defy the norm, so some snakes would go above and beyond the norm. So, that 6ft snake you saw coming from the woodpile, could actually bite you and hold on if you were within 3ft of its nose.

 

Not sure how true, but this is what I've heard since I was a kid. It's said that a bite from a baby poisonous snake would more dangerous than if bitten by an adult. All snakes have the same toxins (potency) from birth through death. The years teach snakes control on how much venom will do the job. They need to conserve their venom in case they would like to eat again anytime soon. A baby snake doesn't posess this sort of control yet. It's like giving the car keys to a 2 year old and asking him/her to only go 15mph. Good luck.

Edited by AllenFamilyCachers
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Not sure how true, but this is what I've heard since I was a kid. It's said that a bite from a baby poisonous snake would more dangerous than if bitten by an adult. All snakes have the same toxins (potency) from birth through death. The years teach snakes control on how much venom will do the job. They need to conserve their venom in case they would like to eat again anytime soon. A baby snake doesn't posess this sort of control yet. It's like giving the car keys to a 2 year old and asking him/her to only go 15mph. Good luck.

I've heard this, too. I had to deal with a baby rattler (about 1' in length) because it trapped itself near a sidewalk and was harassing passerbys. When I tried to move it with a stick (about 5' long), it sprayed a LOT of venom everywhere on its first strike. So maybe it is true.

 

Another warning about baby rattlers - some of them can't rattle yet, even though the tail is shaking like a happy dog.

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