Snakes afoot, keep an eye out for them - Marietta Times
I have always had a thing about snakes. As a child I had a pet snake, and they are kind of cool pets. Mine was a hognose. They have this ability to flatten their head out like a cobra when scared. I remember mine would do this when a car would drive by. I thought all snakes were friendly like mine, so I tried to pick a snake up out of the yard once.
He promptly bit my thumb. I had to take my free hand to open its mouth and get him off. Thankfully, it was a garter snake and not something that could hurt me.
As an adult it seems as though I rarely see snakes. It's not that they are not out there, I just don't see them. As a hiker and trail runner that is not a good thing. A few weeks ago, my wife, Lori, and I were hiking the Rudolph Trail system off Mill Creek Road. The wonderful system has around 10 miles of trails that travel across a rugged area with steep hills and several streams. Over the years I have seen herds of deer, wild turkeys, hundreds of squirrels and a wide variety of birds, but I never see a snake until someone points it out to me.
Notification can come in a variety of ways. I was running once near the high school when a friend yelled to stop. Since I had never heard him yell those words before, it startled me, as did the large black snake I nearly stepped on. On at least three other occasions I have walked or run past a snake just inches from my feet.
The thing is that a snake looks a lot like a stick when it is sitting still. A stick looks a lot like a root. For hikers and trail runners, roots have almost as much danger as snakes. You can happily be going down a trail one second and be lying face down in the mud the next. You are constantly scanning for roots 10 to 20 feet in front of you and then you make every effort to not trip on them. I think I must see the snakes, but my brain must think they are a root.
Since trails often also have spiders on them, I somehow always seem to be in the front to break out the webs. Because of this, I frequently pass the snake before anyone sees the snake. This was the case on the Mill Creek Trail at the Rudolph network a few weeks ago. When you use the network, you know you are about to go back to the parking area when the trail turns into a bed of pine needles. It normally is a nice way to finish a run or a hike. I heard my wife scream from behind me. Assuming she had slid in some mud I kept going. She quickly caught up to me and said she had in fact stepped on a snake. "I think I killed it," she said, "because I stepped on its head."
Neither of us are that good at identifying snakes. Her next step was a 20-foot leap, so I don't think she got a very good look at it. Copperheads are known to live in the area, so our minds quickly went there, but who knows? The point is, there are things in the woods that can hurt you. Both roots, and to a lesser extent, snakes can be lurking around the next curve in the path. Be careful out there and enjoy the outdoors.
Art Smith is online manager of The Times. He can be reached at asmith@mariettatimes.com
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