Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board Whew! That was a close call!

I grew up in So. Arizona and have hiked for years in AZ. and Calif. and don't remember EVER crossing paths with a rattle snake! Did see two Grand Canyon Pink Rattle Snakes in one camp on the North Rim near the river. We described them to a Grand Canyon Ranger who told us their name but didn't believe it because he had NEVER seen one! One of my two close calls involved being stranded in a storm on the summit of Whitney for three days. I finally survived but lost three finger tips and 6 toe tips from frostbite. The other close call was while piloting a plane at night, but that would be way off topic. . .

Just yesterday I was hiking Dreaded Hill in OC and a rattler rattled & poised to strike about a foot off my right side. It's pretty steep hill so the sound of the rattler sounded like it was right next to my head. I think I jumped about 4 feet. We just scared the stuffings out of each other.

Saw a beautiful snake on a little local hike last Tuesday. I used my infamous Shrew Stick to convince him that we would all be happier if he moved off the road. Of course I did not hurt him. I wish I had grabbed the camera before he started moving, but I did get it out in time to get a good little movie of his rattles as he made his way into the grass. You can see it at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_e2CwwRey8

During the upload to youtube, the quality went out the window so you'll have to take my word that it was a beautiful snake.

Very cool video! Thanks for having the presence of mind to capture that moment!

May 30 2004, Rocky Mountain National Park.

A mother's love for her young...

After returning from a short hike from Mills Lake, I rounded a meadow and noticed something moving in the bush right off the trail. As I passed I noticed it was a new born elk, probably just a couple days old, concealed in the brush. Thought it was strange as no mother was around for such a young one.

That is until I rounded the next bend in the trail; a large female elk stared at me with the eyes of an eagle, started coughing, then began charging me from about 100 yards out in the meadow where she had been grazing with another doe. Figuring running would be an exercise in futility, and may provoke a chase, I stopped and put my pack in front of me to brace for a possible attack.

I was also in the middle of a meadow, no large rocks to situate myself behind, no trees anywhere within at least 60 yards...just some small snow drifts.

With the speed of a horse in full gallop, within about 5 seconds, she was within 10 yards of me, then came to a screeching halt within four feet of me kicking dirt and sand in my face as she slid to a stop...all the while scratching in the dirt and swaying her head, lowering it occasionally as if to mock charge the final four feet....

After a standoff of about two minutes where she would advance a foot then backup and repeat scratching the dirt, I slowly backed away until about 20 yards, then picked up the pace and was away safely.

Rob

Wait, forget the elk...

Central Park at night, looking for Great Horned Owls in the woods north of West 79th street.

Thanks Glenn. I will take my snake over RAC's angry elk any day.

I just want to say, first, that I am sitting here at a desk in the middle of the big (SF) city and thinking about "moosetracks" and all the others with the sierra's in their backyards . . . JMT #3, 1998ish––it's about 7:30 in the morning and I'm thinking one thing, or two––the portal store and the showers at Keith"s barber shop (sad that he's gone) and I am coming off the summit (after another lovely lung sucking night up there) faster than I should, slaloming down the switchbacks as fast as I can.

it was 32 degrees when I left the summit and I am dressed for it and strapped tightly into a pair of Leki Makalu's(my product endorsement spot)and I come around a hair-pin turn and to my great dismay, both sticks get caught in fine cracks . . .

. . . you know how it is when you are humming along and suddenly one of your sticks gets caught, pulling you off balance because you almost have to put it in reverse to get it out. I got both of them stuck and my momentum just didn't stop or dislodge them until I got yanked back and then I got crucified––unable to free myself from the straps and losing my balance, I went right into a rock pile.

Smacked my head on a boulder(but the brim of my hat took the impact, sort of)––and my right knee nailed a rock, causing it to immediately swell up, as I did everything I could to get to my feet, but I was like a twisted mass of backpack and fatigue and I just hung there on the still planted poles,taking stock of the situation.

I finally got the strength to wrestle up the fifty pounds of pack and get one of my hands out of the gloves and strap and . . . My world record descent was slowed to a one foot, literally, in front of another, descent.

I was in so much pain, I managed to fall a few more times. One time I fell and was on my back, like a tortured bug or a tortoise and this European lady walked right over me and looked at me as though I was a bum on a city street––yeah, I hadn't had a bath in a few weeks but . . . Luckily, I met a very nice woman who gave me about eight Motrin and within a short time, I was back at it, doing a pretty good clip. I made it all the way down to the portal and then to LP and then onto a midnight greyhound, when the pain started to all come back. Ouch.

Just glad I was able to walk off the mountain and get down to LP at about 100 degrees!!!!

Moral to the story––once you've made the summit, take your time going down and watch those damn poles.

I have had two close encounters with rattlesnakes. The first one was years ago in a canyon in the Wasatch range. I suddenly heard rattling coming from behind me, where my son was hiking. Then I saw the rattlesnake between us, where I had just walked. I must have stepped right over it.

The second time was a couple years ago on the Bubbs Creek trail. As I rounded a large boulder, a rattlesnake registered its anger at my presence. It was right next to my left leg, poised to strike. I jumped to my right to get out of reach, and got my shin really good on a rock in the process. I still have a scar from that.

Last year a friend of mine almost bought the farm on Sawtooth. We had summited, and he went back toward Sawtooth Pass to meet a friend of his who was still on the way up. I went down the south ridge to drop down to upper Monarch Lake. He spotted us down the south ridge and decided that he wanted to rejoin us; he tried to traverse straight across the face, forgetting that it turned into steep gravel-covered rock and cliffs. He lost his footing in the gravel and slid feet-first down the slope, spread-eagled to try to stop. He eventually stopped about a foot from the edge of a large cliff.

Last October I was hiking in the San Gabriels (South Fork Camp Ground up towards Islip Saddle) I stopped to take a nature call and while relieving myself I looked down and a baby rattler was crawling between my legs. How did I know it was a baby rattler you ask? Well.. it was about 15" long and only had a button on the end not a full rattle. Needless to say I almost had to do more this wizz after that! I let him continue on his way and continued my hike, on the return trip I looked around where I had been and sure enough he was curled up under the tree.
I have photos but I'm not sure how to attach them. Last year I had two rattler encounters while hiking, I really hate trails that are overgrown on both sides..

Like Bob, I have been hiking for a lot of years, so there are quite a few close calls for me to remember. The one that comes to mind most often happened in the Salt River Canyon of Arizona. I was the sponsor of a high school hiking club with about 20 students on a trip up a remote canyon. We came to a waterfall with a steep chute that had running water to about 4 feet in depth running down a slot canyon. We found that we could climb above the water by pressing our legs against one side and our hands against the other, thus climbing the chute above the force of the water. Finally, we got above the chute and began climbing the face of a cliff to get above the falls. The face was steep and relatively smooth with about a 60% incline, but there was no better way out. As we climbed the face, one of the high school kids above me began to panic and simply slid down the face, his hands grasping the cliff face as he slid. My son was on the trip and he yelled at me to catch him, referring to the guy sliding. I reached out and caught the sliding kid by the hair on top of his head- thank the Lord it was relatively long. My grab caught the kid, who wrestled 179 pounds so he was not a lightweight kid. Arresting his fall, I was barely able to calm him down enough to get him to climb back up with me pulling on his hair to assist. We both prayed right there on the cliff and then finished the climb to safety.

The young man I caught went on to college and wrote to me for years before I lost contact with him. Naturally, I knew I should not have taken that route with a group of kids and should never have taken those risks, but that was in hindsight. The image of that kid sliding past me lives in my memory forever. Thank God that I had the chance to catch him before he fell the rest of the way.

Chuck Ellsworth