Lizards and Spiders and Snakes! Oh My!

Today I went out on a hike and missed seeing the trifecta in my title by about 50 feet or so. I hiked the Claremont Hills Wilderness Park loop today, a little over 6 miles from my car back to my car. I decided today was a good day for a hike, since it's supposed to rain again later in the evening and on into tomorrow. We got rain on Wednesday, so the trail had dried out enough that footing wasn't an issue, but it was still damp in spots where you could make out deer tracks.

I think I got on the trail right around 9:30 or so. Being as it's sunny, but cool, it seemed like a perfect time for me to go hiking when most of the morning crowd have already left the park. Less people means there's a likelihood of seeing more animals out and about and I was able to spot all sorts of interesting things.

For one thing, there were still quite a few butterflies flitting about. I saw one tiger swallowtail and at least two different cabbage white butterflies. I saw several lizards running away from me along the trail or disappearing into the brush as the side of the trail. Lizards are interesting creatures in that they'll hold still for a very long time and then all of a sudden will make a mad dash. I think in reality if they were to hold still and just stay there, many people would miss them altogether. I, for one, have noticed many lizards only after they started moving away from me. They tend to blend in a little better into the dirt and stuff of the trail than do snakes, so I feel that they're not as easily spotted as are snakes.

The main attraction along the trail today however were the tarantulas. For the most part, this is about the only time of the year when you can really see tarantulas out and about. It's mating season and they're out prowling around for mates. This guy was about halfway across the trail/fire road when I encountered it. I took quite a few shots of it, but several of them came out blurry. I guess I'm still getting used to the camera on my new phone, but I got several good shots, this one being the best of the bunch. After taking this shot, I got back up and let the spider walk between my legs and continue to the other side of the trail.

Later on I encountered another tarantula walking along the side of the trail. I watched it for a little bit, even putting my shoe out in front of it to see if it would climb over my shoe. It touched my shoe with one foot and then decided to detour around it. Oh well, I tried. And I can already hear some of my friends and family thinking, "Geez Paul, why do you do some of the things you do?" Because I'm interested in things like that. Anyway, I left that tarantula alone, continued on my hike, but just around the corner, a maintenance truck was coming down the trail and so I became worried that it might run over the tarantula, so I walked back down and was relieved to see that it missed it by at least a foot or so.

I didn't see any snakes today, however as I noted above, it appears as if I missed seeing a rattlesnake by about fifty feet or so. I was on the downhill stretch of the trail, heading back to the car, but I still had about a mile and a half of walking to do when a guy came jogging up the hill. Instead of the normal wave or quick hi, he said, "There's a rattlesnake on trail." My response back to him was "Cool." He said it was about fifty feet further down the trail, so I walked down, but unfortunately (at least for me), I never spotted the snake, which means it had probably already slithered off into the brush along the side of the trail. No photo of a rattlesnake today, so you'll have to be satisfied with this photo of the gopher snake I spotted a couple of days ago along another part of the trail.

All in all, it was a good hike and workout today. I feel like I'm back to my old self once again and I even thought about hiking the loop a second time, but I knew that probably wouldn't be good for me since I could feel myself getting hungry. Another two hours on the trail without any kind of sustenance would not make a happy me. But the good thing was that my energy level seems to be back the way it was before all this health shenanigans started almost a year ago. The only thing that I have noticed is the my mileage times aren't quite there and I'm not sure they ever will be. I used to be able to do that loop averaging about 18 minute miles. Today, I averaged slightly over 20 minutes per mile, which I find acceptable. I'm getting older and it doesn't make sense to punish my body for the sake of fast miles. The whole purpose is to get some exercise and enjoy the scenery. I did both today.

Be Ever Vigilant

 

Every now and then we all make mistakes. Today, while out hiking, I was doing my usual thing, scanning the trail when I heard something off to my right, so I looked over there to see if I could see anything of interest. The problem with what I did is I usually stop and look. This time I didn't, but kept walking up the trail. And that's when everything went kind of sideways.

I turned my head back to the trail, took one more step and out of my peripheral vision, I saw something move right about where I was going to place my foot. This little guy now had my complete attention and apparently I had its complete attention too as it immediately coiled into strike position. And it's amazing how many thoughts went through my head in probably the one second or so it took to push off with my other foot and take an exaggerated jump over this snake.

Thought one, "Oh crap, I'm stepping on a baby rattlesnake."

Thought two, "Why isn't it rattling? Too small to have an active rattle?"

Thought three, "Where's its damn tail, oh there it is. Oh, it's a gopher snake."

As you can see from the photo, I really got way too close to this one. That's the first time I've ever seen a gopher snake go into strike mode. It was prepared to defend itself and it didn't really believe that I was friendly and wouldn't hurt it on purpose. And as you can see it remained in a semi-strike mode even after it took off into the bushes at the side of the trail.

The lesson is, if you hear a sound off trail, stop, look and listen. Then continue on with your hike. Had I done that, this encounter probably wouldn't have been less stressful for both of us. Also, be ever vigilant, even in the cooler months as they still could be active.